Simple Storytelling and The Bone Temple (2026)
Updated: Sep 29
My third week of writing and the story reaches 5,500 words or thereabouts. Storytelling is a strange thing, at least to me, for when and where characters join and re-join in with the process is entirely on their say so.
For instance, I was writing this week and fully intended for a cart transporting two characters to be met by family in their village at dusk. A simple premise, easing me back into writing. Indeed I got all the way to within sight of said village when another "character" - in this case a different location as opposed to person (YES - my locations tend to take on the properties of characters) demanded I go there, whereupon I was introduced to new people I'd not yet imagined. Now this may seem a strange thing to say, but as a writer I didn't want to go in said direction. No, indeed I fought against it for a time. All of a day. Only for the flow of words to feel forced and thus, with reluctant and uncertain shrug, I turned back to the character's lead and (lo and behold) it worked.
Can I explain it?
No.
But you will often hear writers describe this in their writing. It is as if the piece takes on a life of its own and you - as the writer - are merely the scribe of another's story.
Something else I've re-realised on my third week back to writing is my own belief in keeping the story simple, and I watched what I believe is a wonderful example of this last night in the 2026 film, 'The Bone Temple'.
The latest film in the 28 Days Later portfolio, it features a wonderful cast including Ralph Fiennes, Jack O'Connell, Erin Kellyman, Emma Laird, and Cillian Murphy, and honestly I wasn't expecting to enjoy it anything like as much as I did. Most horrors today tend to rely on shock and gore, but this had a wonderfully simple story at heart: the delusion of one man as the son of the Devil versus the seeming delusion of another who strives to find a cure for the rage virus, and their inadvertent coming together as father and son.
In all the story takes place over a very short period of time and little is known about many of the characters, but the attention to detail given to how characters dress, talk, act, what they know, and locations within which they exist, from train and farm to insane constructs of bone, along with hints at the origin of delusion and madness, allows the audience to create a wonderfully complex viewing experience, rich in reward against a particularly original and different soundtrack. I won't give anything away, but I thoroughly enjoyed the themes of folk-horror, man and monster, that ran through it, and in particular I loved that it reminded me of the folk-horror brilliance of British productions in the 1970s. If you're stuck for something to watch and like this sort of thing, I'd highly recommend it.
Warmed my cockles.
So to speak.
HOWZAT!
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