The Tell-Tale Wife: a postscript
There are ideas in this piece that have been brewing for awhile. What made me write it, however, was one concept that came to me while reading the novelization of "Videodrome." (Yes, I happen to like reading cheesy paperback novelizations of movies. They're usually based on the original shooting script, so they may vary a bit from the final cut of the movie.) In the novelization, the James Woods character imagines he has a dead woman in his bed. Then she disappears. Later, he goes to take a bath and a television rises out of the water to torment him. (A scene that didn't make it to the final movie, by the way.) Anyway, I thought the writer blew it. Woods should find the missing body in the tub. THAT could be scary.
So what if my character couldn't get rid of a body? It keeps showing up. I started with the bathtub bit, then added stuff that scares me. When I walk through my dark house at two o'clock in the morning, I imagine how I would react if I bumped into someone. Someone who doesn't belong in my house. Dead or alive, human or other, the idea scares the bejeezus out of me in the dark. So the dead wife shows up in the kitchen.
One day last year, I was driving to work at five AM. The sun hadn't come up yet. I was listening the Art Bell radio program, and people were calling in with their ghost stories. Someone told about their dead mother whom they saw sitting in the backseat of their car one day. That freaked me out. I kept checking my rearview mirror after that. So the dead wife makes her final appearance in the car.
The last thing to do was come up with a reason for the man to kill his wife. And a reason for him to cover it up. It couldn't just be an accident. And you have to WANT the man to get caught. I don't know if the set up works as well as it could, but I wanted the piece to be short and get to the murder as soon as possible. If this was a Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt episode (23 minutes) I would probably add more character information upfront.
The story could also continue after my endpoint, but it would probably devolve into black comedy. That wouldn't necessarily be bad, but I was going for straight horror. If Frank tried to hide Joan from the cop, or if he got caught and she showed up in jail or at the courthouse, it would probably get pretty silly.
About form: I put in camera directions quite often because that's how I see the story in my mind.
Camera angles are vital in setting up scares. Also, after working in animation, I tend to describe every shot.
Maybe I put in too many descriptions (some directors hate the writer telling them where to put the camera),
but it seems right to me.
Anyway, thanks for reading the piece. Let me know what you think!
-Mike