The Promise Is Where It Starts

In a struggling community near Lincoln Park, Michigan, reinvention has become a business. A one-week course offers women a way forward. Beneath that promise sit questions about obedience, control, and how much of yourself you can surrender before you can no longer find your way back.

Summer’s search for her missing friend gives this story its personal stakes. The larger fear reaches beyond one disappearance: what happens when the language of helping someone becomes permission to remake them?

This is horror rooted in identity, pressure, and human choices. I want the audience to feel the appeal of the promise—and then feel what it costs.

What I Want to Bring to the Screen

The heart of this adaptation is the struggle to keep hold of yourself while someone else insists they know who you should become. Friendship gives us a reason to enter. The promise of transformation gives us a reason to hesitate before leaving.

I see room for performances that let encouragement become pressure, ordinary spaces that grow harder to trust, and tension that stays with the audience after the scene ends. Those are creative possibilities I want to explore with the right collaborators.

Whether the strongest form is a feature film or a limited series should come from a serious reading and an honest development conversation. I’m looking for someone who can help find that form while preserving the story’s identity.

At over 500 pages, Bereft Reality offers substantial source material for a continuing psychological horror series. My vision is an adaptation that could unfold across five seasons, with its structure developed alongside the right creative team.

You May Know the Person Who Opens the Door

Maybe you’re one of the people named below. Maybe you work with them. Or maybe you know someone who could put this story in front of the right person. That connection is part of what I’m hoping to find.

If Bereft Reality catches your attention and you have a professional connection to a filmmaker, producer, production company, agent, or manager who might respond to it, I would welcome an introduction. Sharing this page with a personal recommendation could be the beginning of a conversation I haven’t been able to reach on my own.

I’m also interested in hearing from agents and managers who see potential in representing my work for film and television. The eight invitations below reflect people whose work interests me; I would welcome other collaborators with the vision and ability to help this story move forward.

You don’t have to make the movie yourself to help it find its way to the screen. If you believe someone should read this book, please help us meet.

Eight Invitations. One Story Worth Opening.

To the filmmakers and producers below: I am inviting you to read Bereft Reality and tell me what you see. Each of you is here for a different reason. I would welcome a conversation with you, your team, or a representative able to help the work move forward.

Listed alphabetically by surname, with equal standing. These are invitations from the author; no involvement or endorsement is implied.

The Story Continues Beyond Book One

Bereft Reality is already a published novel. A card game based on the book has been drafted, and part two is fully outlined. I’m preparing to move forward with the sequel after I finish a couple of current projects.

Those are works in development, and I would be glad to discuss them with a collaborator who wants to understand the larger creative direction. The first step is still the novel: read it, find what takes hold, and decide whether we should build something together.

My other published novels include Picking Murphys, First Responder, Site 123, and They Heinous. I also have two full-series prestige bibles for the First Responder world. Those are separate projects I can discuss if there is a better fit elsewhere in my work.

Read It. Tell Me What Followed You Home.

If the premise interests you, let’s start with a reading conversation. Tell me who you are, what caught your attention, and how you would like to explore the book. We can discuss the appropriate way to share reading material and any further information your team needs.

I’m seeking a collaborator who can help develop the work, connect it with the right people, or represent it for film and television. I want an honest response to the story and a clear conversation about the next step.

I’m in Floyds Knobs, Indiana. If you’re nearby, I’d welcome a conversation over dinner. If distance gets in the way, email or a video call can open the same door.

DarkFictionAuth@gmail.com

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