The Orchard Remembers: Why I Turned The Withering Orchard Into a Screenplay

 

Some stories aren’t content to stay on the page.

The Withering Orchard began as a short story, a quiet descent into ritual, memory, and the kind of silence that creeps under your skin. I thought that was enough. I thought prose could contain it. But the more I lived with Burrington, the more I realized the orchard wasn’t just meant to be read, it was meant to be seen.

That’s when I started the screenplay.

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Why a Screenplay?

Screenplays are strange creatures. They’re stripped bare, no long inner monologues, no drifting paragraphs, no gentle padding of language. A script is bones and muscle, waiting for light and shadow to bring it alive. And that’s what makes it terrifying.

Because when you write something as a screenplay, you have to see it.

You don’t write “Anabeth felt the weight of being forgotten.”
You write:
EXT. TOWN SQUARE – NIGHT
Anabeth kneels alone. No one looks at her. The journal glows faintly in her hands.

And suddenly, the loneliness isn’t in her head- it’s on the stage, in the street, pressing against the audience as heavily as it presses against her.

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The Set of Memory

When I reimagined the orchard for the screenplay, I didn’t see endless groves. I saw something almost theatrical, trees standing like props, roots breaking through stageboards, a shadow that felt both painted and alive. The orchard became a stage, and Anabeth? She was an actor trapped in someone else’s ritual, reading lines she never agreed to.

And if that sounds eerie, it should. Because that’s what screenplays do: they make the unseen visible, whether you want to see it or not.

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A Bonus, A Memory, A Warning

I’m releasing The Withering Orchard: The Screenplay as bonus material to the short story, not because everyone loves reading scripts (most people don’t), but because some stories deserve to exist in multiple forms.

This isn’t just a retelling. It’s the orchard from another angle. The ritual still unfolds, the cloaked figure still waits, the roots still pulse beneath your feet - but now, you can watch it happen.

And maybe, when the lights go down and the script fades to black, you’ll feel the same realization Anabeth does:

The orchard never forgets.
Not her.
Not you.
Not anyone who lingers too long.

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👉 The Withering Orchard: The Screenplay is now available as a companion edition to the short story. For readers who want to step into the square, see the ritual performed, and watch the orchard claim its memory. Find it here The Minds In Design Store The Withering Orchard is just a small part of the Where Time Can' Exist series, but it acts as an opening to the time forgotten town of Burrington. 

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