Link to short story | Photo credit
Last summer, I picked up One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by BJ Novak at the thrift store for a buck, and it quickly became one of my favorite poolside reads. It’s a good thing I only spent a dollar, because Novak’s book came to know chlorine water quite well by the end of the summer.
One story in particular struck me, “One of These Days, We Have to Do something About Willie.” It screamed Southern Gothic to me, and felt like a modern version of a Flannery O’Connor story.
Last Fall semester, I took a Writing for TV and Film class at Auburn. By that December (now cold and no longer poolside), I was still thinking about Novak’s story. For our final, we were to write a script adaption, so I felt as if I had no choice than to go with Novak.
If you haven’t read the short story, I highly recommend you reading it before my script. A link for it is at the top of this post. It’s not too long, and it’s a really, really good story. I took a few artistic liberties–and I’d like to know what you think of my additions in comparison to Novak’s original story.
And if you haven’t read the book, you definitely should. Because it’s a collection of short stories, you can take nice breaks between reading them—and I love books where it’s okay if you’ve forgotten what happened twenty pages earlier.
Traditional script formatting and WordPress doesn’t mix well, so I’ve uploaded it as a PDF for you to read it in all its glory.
Kressie Kornis 