What is a Hollywood short story?
I love writing in the car.
There’s currently a trend in Hollywood to sell short stories rather than screenplays or pitches. Maybe because it’s easier to read a short story than a screenplay. Maybe because it’s easier to write one too. Or so you’d think.
Last year I wrote a short story called ‘NYC, 2007’ and shared it with my writing group. A friend then shared it with a producer who took it out to screenwriters and collaborators in hopes of it being adapted into a screenplay. It didn’t go anywhere, but it led to me meeting my managers.
Since then I’ve written a few other short stories with Hollywood in mind. They’re different than stories I’ve submitted to publications. Different because of their purpose. They need to serve as blueprints for a screenplay whereas a novel or literary short story is usually written to stand alone.
The tricky thing is that fiction is typically a more interior medium than the visual nature of a screenplay. How do you balance the voice of a narrator with the action of a short story written as proof of concept for a movie?
I noticed that with few exceptions, these short stories are written in the first person present. Maybe it’s that first person present feels like you’re reading what the camera sees. It’s about immersion. You want that agent or producer to feel something on page one. To see something as shootable immediately. Whereas an omniscient narrator or third person perspective gives you distance and perspective, first person lets you mainline the story like it’s a TikTok video. Sign of the times.
The first couple of stories I wrote for the purpose of film adaptation were basically first act short stories. All around 16 pages. Many of the big sales around town are in the 40-50 page range. I’ve heard that people want to get a full three act story in one shot. Which leads me to my latest project called ‘The Hole,’ a short story about a primordial black hole that appears in the barn of a couple of young influencers. I wrote a 42 page first draft and am now hearing from friends that it should be shorter. My favorite short story sale of the past couple years was ‘The Barrier’ by MacMillan Hedges which did a great job of just sticking to the main beats and came in at 22 pages.
So here I am, trying to squeeze a cow into a carry on suitcase. Something with enough meat that it looks like a movie. But short enough to be pablum for the salivating holders of purse strings. It almost makes you grateful that a screenplay is around a hundred pages.
I’ll share ‘NYC, 2007’ here next week.
- Chris
