Crystal Lake: Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes on the brainstorming sessions for Friday the 13th series

Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes discussed the time they spent in the writers room / think tank for the Friday the 13th series Crystal Lake

A Friday the 13th TV series called Crystal Lake is coming our way from Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller, Friday the 13th franchise rights holders Victor Miller and Rob Barsamian (plus Miller’s lawyer Marc Toberoff), A24, and the Peacock streaming service. Unfortunately, any progress the show was making has been put on hold during the writers strike – but earlier this year, Fuller assembled a writers room that spent six weeks brainstorming ideas and breaking down the scripts that will make up the first season of the series. Two of the writers in that room were author Tananarive Due, who has written multiple novels over the last thirty years and executive produced Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror, and her husband Steven Barnes, who is also an author and has also contributed scripts to shows like Stargate SG-1, The Outer Limits, and the ’80s version of The Twilight Zone. A few years ago, Due and Barnes also collaborated on an episode of the Jordan Peele version of The Twilight Zone.

Due and Barnes have a podcast called Lifewriting: Write for Your Life!, and on an episode of that show they discussed their experience in the writers room – which actually couldn’t be called a writers room for legal purposes. It was referred to as a “think tank”. Every day for six weeks, the writers met with Fuller, the people they called his “three lieutenants”, who have worked with him on previous shows like Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, and American Gods; and other writers who were asked to bring ideas to Crystal Lake. One writer Due and Barnes mentioned as being in the room was Tommy Pico, who is on the Reservation Dogs staff.

Barnes said the work they did in the “think tank” was “The weaving together of a dozen different threads, the epitome of the plotter technique“… that being used to describe the approach of completely plotting out a story before writing it. “To write without any sense of an outline is diametrically opposed to what was happening in that room. Whatever that is where you just sit down and write, what was going on in that room was the absolute opposite.” Every idea was broken down with meticulous detail.

Due was awed that “an entire room of very, very high level and smart storytellers can swim in the same direction and do so peacefully, and then if the showrunner says, ‘Eh, I don’t like that direction,’ then bam! They’re all swimming in another direction.” The goal in the room was to “integrate with the mastermind”, the mastermind being Fuller in this case. “You’re not in charge, it’s not your story, you are in service to the mastermind, in service to the showrunner.”

Barnes pointed out that the showrunner is then “in service to the money people who are actually paying for all of this, so he needs to able to communicate to the writers and keep a group of people on track, but also be able to understand how they would be able to produce this and comfort the money people that their money is being spent well.“

Apparently traditional writers rooms last for much longer, something like thirteen weeks. But Due and her collaborators were told “this room was moving very, very fast. That we broke the number of episodes we had in six weeks, whereas some rooms would have only broken one episode in six weeks.” They said they were able to work at that speed and figure out the episodes so quickly because of the “extraordinary leadership” of Fuller.

So this all sounds very promising for Crystal Lake… We just have to wait for the writers strike to be resolved so it can actually move forward from this. It should be noted that the “think tank” actually wrapped up their time together back in March, which is also when this episode of Lifewriting was released. But Due and Barnes’ talk of working on Crystal Lake didn’t get much coverage, and with everything at a standstill right now, this seemed like a nice time to share confirmation that positive progress was being made on the show before the strike began. And hopefully Fuller will be able to keep it moving forward once the strike is over.

Fuller has previously said that he had mapped out three seasons of Crystal Lake. (And apparently he has cracked season 4 as well since he said that.) Peacock faces a financial penalty if they don’t at least let the show run for two seasons. Fuller has described the show as a “pre-remake-quel” and said that they can use any elements they want from the entire Friday the 13th franchise. The plan is that we will see “many familiar manifestations of Jason” throughout the series. “The series is covering the life and times of these two characters (presumably he’s referring to Pamela and Jason there)”. There’s also going to be two scores to choose from: “a modern one and a classic Harry Manfredini one.” Friday the 13th (watch it HERE) heroine Adrienne King, whose character Alice Hardy didn’t last very long into Friday the 13th Part 2 (watch that one HERE), is going to have a recurring role on the show, Scream writer Kevin Williamson will be writing an episode, and Fuller has also met with Tom Savini… but never said why there was a meeting with Savini…

Are you looking forward to Crystal Lake? What do you think of what Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes had to say about their time in the “think tank”? Let us know by leaving a comment below.