Writing Strategy: The Shifting Story of Widow's Bay and Why It Works

*Spoiler warning for spoilers up to Episode 8.

I sometimes worry that I explain too much in my stories.

I've had stories stall because I worried they were headed nowhere, or that they were too linear and caught up in picayune detail.

Watching Widow's Bay has reminded me that once I have those details down, once I have them decided in my mind, anything can happen. I can play with framing and form and reveal these details in a way that both challenges the reader and leaves them wanting more. If it serves the story, I can shift points of view and stagger the timeline so new information can be revealed in ways that honors the characters.

In the show, we travel through the events of the first three episodes in a relatively straight line up to the inaugural swim and the subsequent voyeurism of watching the mayor's nightmarish love life, but wait, there's a cocktail party he misses, followed by a panicked voicemail from the sheriff.

In the next episode, we go back in time so Patty can plan the cocktail party and show events from her point of view, painting in more context about Patty and the town and her experiences with the slasher The Boogeyman.

Episode five, "What to Expect On Your Trip," breaks up the story even more even though it does follow Patty's party. By no fault of his own, Tom Loftis takes psychedelic mushrooms, and within a few minutes of this revelation, is losing time. We get to see him slowly unraveling as the screen fades to black between his brief coherent interludes. We don't get to see much of the action that's actually driving the plot forward.

Patty and Wyck are furthering the plot without him. During during these periods of lucidity, we see hints and glimpses of the information they're finding, until Rosemary is tasked with taking him home.

There is nothing I want more from this show than to see what he was up to during his trip. Throughout the episode it's clear that it's become everyone else's problem, from Patty, exhausted and annoyed at the question, "Did you hear that?" to the poor gas station clerk's response to him coming back into the store after waking up in the car. Loftis is wearing only one shoe, with the car door open, and Rosemary's inside playing scratch-offs at the counter. He takes in spilled milk on the floor as the clerk mops at the mess then asks, "Is that my loafer?" right before the kid screams for him to get out and he lunges to scoop it up.

These moments in time drop us right into the middle of events, disorienting us, then cuts off before the payoff. I want to know what he said to the angry townspeople at their listening session. I want to know why Patty was leading him around on a retractable leash. I want to know what makes the people who take these mushrooms start drawing hands like a kid drawing a Thanksgiving turkey for school.

I have a grudge against "Our History," episode six, because it's the story of the founding of Widow's Bay, not a follow up to the previous episode. Of course it was beautifully made, it even has its own unique period horror title card. It's a testament to the show that I trust them to give me the goods eventually, "Our History" may yet be redeemed.

It helps that in episode eight, "Your Baggage," we finally get payoff for the events of Patty's cocktail party episode, "Beach Reads." It isn't completely tied up in a bow, the show is too complex for that, but we do see The Boogeyman and have a better idea of the events of her story surviving his attacks when she was in high school.

It's a satisfying episode. The details of all those years before are still a bit hazy, but we see how Patty reacts now and get an idea of what could have happened all those years ago. For one, Patty manages to avoid many of the victim mishaps that annoy viewers and make them scream at the screen. Like, as soon as Patty thinks something is off about the vibe in her house, she leaves, with a taser (albeit a corded one with insufficient charge) in hand. She runs to a neighboring house to try to get help.

When the mean girls who do have a valid reason to be mean shun her once again, she still tries to save them.

And when she faces off against The Boogeyman, she isn't playing around. She makes sure he's well and dead before she puts her guard down, and of course it's to comedic effect.

I appreciate how much information is revealed in each episode, the sheer amount of detail the writers manage to cram into relatively short time frames. The stories are often not straightforward. Characters lie and withhold information. They get in each other's way and interrupt each other. They refuse to get involved, to engage with the events happening around them.

That the events of the show are presented like a jumble of pieces we get to put together is one of the reasons Widow's Bay works. The show's creators allow the show to be messy and complicated, without spoon feeding the people tuning in. Every time those pieces form into a scene that subverts expectations instead of showing the familiar, then hints at what might be coming next, it leaves us wanting more, even as the show is rooted in stories and tropes familiar to horror fans.