Writing stories always came very easy to Glen Staples. When he was younger he wrote many short stories for his school’s weekly paper. His goal was to be a writer. When that dream started to become reality, Glen set himself on a path to find his purpose for writing. He couldn’t write just for the thrill of creating new ideas and characters. He wanted there to be an intent to all he did.
“Challenge,” he said to himself at the age of twenty-two, the night before his wedding day. He, at that time, was trying to focus on writing his vows as he had not done previously. The word challenge seemed to plunge into his head. Once he said it out loud he realized what it meant. That was to be his intent in writing; to challenge the reader. Not by making the story confusing, or making it grammatically awkward; but by challenging what the reader believed. He wanted people to get out of their predicting and skeptical mindset and be able to be shocked by a story and its plot. To have the main character, whom they love, to be revealed as an antagonist. To change the norm on plot development, and to revolutionize the modern way of viewing a story.
His innovation led him to great success in his writing career. He went from writing small blurbs for a city’s newspaper to writing bestselling novels, in the span of five years. At the age of twenty-six, he started to write the screenplay and script for movies, many of which were based on books he had written.
At the age of forty-two, his current project and behemoth of a challenge to his writing skills and creative mind; was a tragic story about two brothers travelling across the country. The title of this film-to-be was; “For as Long as I Can’t Remember.”
He had previously been working on writing a book with this title and plot, however, he had been unsuccessful in trying to comprise the beginning of the book and the ending. His creative mind was stumped by the project and he let it sit for nine years.
Glen’s production agency approached him with a document shortly after his forty-second birthday. It was his rough-draft of the story. They had explained to him that they found it in his “drafts” file in his office and believed it to be brilliant. They wanted him to skip trying to publish it as a novel, and move straight to bringing it to the big screen. Glen was stark with them and explained his inability to finish the story.
“That’s fine,” one of the men said, “we can hire other writers to assist you.”
Glen, hesitantly agreed to their offer.
Glen sat in the board room for close to half an hour before the first of his new team walked through the door. The board room was where he had spent most of his time writing the scripts for his projects. It had a coffee maker, a large table with luxuriously comfortable leather seats huddled around it, and large green plants surrounding the room. The most defining quality of the room being the perfect place for Glen to write was its east wall. The wall was directly opposite the door and was almost entirely comprised of massive windows, overviewing the entire city and ocean beyond. Stunned by the sensational view, the young writer stopped in the doorway, gazing through the grand set of windows.
“Good morning.” Glen greeted the young man as he stood from his seat to shake his fellow writer’s hand. “I’m Glen.” The young man reached out his dark hand and reciprocated Glen’s action.
“I know who you are Mr. Staples and can I just say it is such an honour to be working with you.” The young man said in an ecstatic tone.
“Please, call me Glen. What’s your name?” he asked.
“Charles, sir. Charles Ridley. I have an undergrad in creative writing but recently I’ve been working with a TV show on their screenplay.” the tall writer responded.
The following four greetings between Glen and his new writing team were of the same manner. They all called Glen, Mr. Staples and told him what a great honour it was to meet him. The second writer’s name was Lindsay Rempel, a medium built woman who looked to Glen to be just out of high school. The third was a man, close to Glen’s age, named Scott Howell. The fourth writer walked into the room quickly. She had a backpack on and horn-rimmed glasses on her petite face. The fiery red-haired woman barely reached Glen’s shoulders in height. Glen introduced himself and stuck out his thick hand. Glen smiled when he felt her hand in his as she said her name: it was small, pale and cold.
“My name’s Phoebe.” Her prominent English accent briefly silenced the room. She looked around and saw her new coworkers all staring at her. “I’m from London, I get this kind of reaction a lot,” she said in an attempt to bring humour to the situation.
Glen, sensing her being slightly uncomfortable, stepped in to segway the conversation. “Take a seat everyone. In your interview was it made aware the exact nature of your being here?” he asked.
“We’re going to help you write a movie script,” Charles replied simply.
“Yes, that’s pretty much it,” Glen replied with a chuckle. “I started writing this story at a young age. It was originally going to be a book but I benched it about ten years ago.”
“How come?” Phoebe asked intently.
“I hit a roadblock. There were key plot elements I was unable to figure out at the time. Recently, however, my publishing company found the drafts and… well… now we’re all here.”
“What was the roadblock?” Scott asked.
“An element to the plot… something to tie it all together… a reason for the chase?” Glen paced and pondered. “I don’t really know. I just couldn’t figure it out. So that’s what I need from all of you. Read the drafts, re-write what needs re-writing, fill the holes, close the gaps, and let’s get this thing on the big screen. Yeah?”
The room let out a bustle of compliance and with that, the five writers began to rework a story that would change Glen’s life forever.