This article contains spoilers.
A little over two months ago, writer Haley Z. Boston’s (Communication ’16) breakout project “Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen” was released on Netflix.
The horror limited series, executively produced by “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer, follows betrothed couple Rachel and Nicky in the days leading up to their wedding. The show deals with themes of toxic family dynamics, the question of soulmates and managing grief.
In May, The Daily spoke with Boston, as well as fellow NU alum Isaac Sims (Communication ’17), a writer and script coordinator on the show. Boston and Sims, who both majored in radio, television and film, each discussed the process of working on a limited series, what they learned from their time at NU and advice for aspiring screenwriters.
These interviews have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
The Daily: How did you feel when (‘Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen’) got greenlit?
Boston: I was so excited and scared, and from the second that call came, my life just changed immediately. I didn’t stop working for two years. It’s a crazy job. You immediately start thinking about, ‘Okay, what’s the budget, and where are we gonna shoot, and who’s gonna direct, and you gotta hire all these people.’ And it’s just like the train is moving.
The Daily: What was the writer’s room like?
Sims: The writer’s room was pretty incredible — I’ve been in a couple different writers’ rooms now, and there was such a unique blend of talent in that writer’s room. We had people who were baked and born into the horror universe. Everyone brought something really unique and really special to the room. And that’s a testament to Haley, wrangling all these different writers’ backgrounds, and collecting a room full of voices she thought would amplify the story she was trying to tell.
The Daily: One thing I really loved about the writing of the show is how there were so many moments where I was like, ‘Okay, I think I know what’s going to happen,’ and then my expectations were just subverted completely. Was that a constant theme in the writer’s room, or did it just happen that way?
Boston: I’m always trying to do that — set expectations, and then make you think ‘X’ is going to happen, and then at the last minute, it’s actually ‘Y.’ That was definitely by design and something that we all really wanted. They talk a lot about ending something — and the best endings being surprising but inevitable. And that was a big thing that we talked about. And so a lot of those twists and turns were in service of trying to make sure that the ending was going to surprise you, but you could look back and go, ‘Oh, I should have seen that coming.’
Sims: We had a little saying in the room, which was, ‘What would Damon Lindelof do?’ He is the king of subverting those tropes and expectations and always getting away with it, and it was a really conscious decision to — if we’re gonna set up a trope, we need to somehow subvert your expectations about how it’s gonna pay off.
The Daily: I was curious about all the NU cameos in the show. What made you decide to include those?
Boston: I love seeing when other people do it. I’ve noticed in other movies — obviously, I noticed the Northwestern ones — but whenever. In ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ it’s mentioned. I just feel like it’s a thing. I feel like people from Northwestern do that, so I wanted to be a part of the trend of homaging the school.
The Daily: What did you learn here or gain from your RTVF major at Northwestern that you applied to your career and to this project?
Boston: I took a lot of writing classes at Northwestern, and I was also a creative writing minor. And it was the first time I’d ever had my work read out loud and critiqued. There was one assignment where we all had to write a story, and then everyone had to write a 500-word essay critiquing everyone else’s story. I wrote a slasher story about these two girls that throw a party and then kill everyone. Half of the class hated it, and the other half loved it. It was literally 50/50, and I was, like, ‘That’s the best thing I could learn.’ That you’re gonna get criticism, and if you’re doing something bold and unique to yourself, it’s not going to have 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Sims: So much of what I got from Northwestern’s film experience was the ability to experiment. I was fortunate to receive several grants to make short films at Northwestern, and there was very little oversight of that process. Getting that high-level trust from people at a very early time in my creative development emboldened me to work with the same level of confidence in a room, just feeling like, ‘As long as I meet the standards that I set for myself, we’re gonna deliver something pretty great.’
The Daily: Is there something (about the show) that you haven’t gotten the chance to talk about?
Boston: The show has a lot of Easter eggs in it, and it’s the kind of thing that I think you can watch multiple times and get. The address of the house that you see on the envelope at the end of the pilot is the date that ‘Carrie’ came out. It’s 11376. The original film came out November 3rd, 1976.
There’s a lot of things like that. Rachel wears a shirt at the end of the pilot that has the Timberline Lodge on it — it’s a lodge where they shot (the hotel’s exterior in) ‘The Shining.’
This is another one, that I’ve never told anyone, which is that we realized that the date of the wedding was the Super Bowl. And so when the blood bath is happening, Jules puts Jude in the room and is like, ‘Keep the TV on,’ and you can hear the announcers talking about the Super Bowl.
The Daily: Do you have any advice for people looking to get into screenwriting and creating shows right now?
Boston: I notice a lot of people trying to follow trends with writing. And I just don’t think that’s the best way to go about it because I really believe that if you write something that’s true to you and that you want to see, your passion will be evident in the writing.
Write the thing that really moves you, the story that you really want to tell, and that’s what gets you noticed. That doesn’t mean you have to write about something that’s happened to you. Obviously, my show did not happen to me. But it was like my experience about my own fears of commitment, and that is what it turned into for me. Write something that is personal to you, and I think that’s what people will respond to.
Sims: I’m always telling myself this: No matter how cool your concept, how meticulously you plot things out, every medium, whether it’s TV or film or a book, it’s all gonna come down to character.
And I approach stories mostly from like, ‘I have a really cool concept that I want to explore,’ because I write a lot of sci-fi. And then every time I sit down to write, I’m like, ‘I need to make this character stronger,’ because I don’t think anyone ultimately cares about how cool my sci-fi machinations are, unless they have someone to latch onto. You’ll find your way to the really cool plot — and the really great twists — only if that character is strong from the beginning.
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