The Child Snatcher

 

General

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A work in progress, The Child Snatcher is a horror novel by Chris Rellim. Upon its completion, it will be his fourth novel.

Rellim decided to abandon the idea to complete the novel in January 2020. Instead of writing a novel, he turned The Child Snatcher into a 163-page screenplay. He wrote it in ten days, starting it Jan 2, 2020 and finishing it January 11, 2020. Soon he will make an effort to get it optioned. 

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Background & History

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The conception of the idea stemmed from a Facebook post he saw in June of 2018 asking people to name three items that would freak out a WalMart cashier.

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The manuscript was started on July 16, 2018. In Nov. 2018, Rellim abandoned his initial manuscript (over 212K words), which accounted for about half of the novel's structure, and started from scratch, completely reworking the structure and storyline. As of January 21, 2019 the manuscript is a little over 120,000 words and is halfway finished.

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But Rellim still wasn't satisfied with the second incomplete manuscript either, so he started over again, though this time using much of the material from the second draft. The third and final (hopefully) draft shows much promise, but Rellim admits the novel will be a like a cinderblock.

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In March of 2019, Rellim ceased work on The Child Snatcher, recognizing it to be a monster, to finish Suicide Watch. As of June 12, 2019 Rellim resumed work on The Child Snatcher. He intends it to be finished within one calendar year.

UPDATE: IN January 2020, Rellim decided to write a screenplay for this story rather than a novel, fearing the novel would be too long and not get published.

 

Structure (novel)

 

Rellim's sketch of the novel included the following:

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Prologue

Part 1: Strange Happenings

Part 2: Disturbing Revelations

Part 3: An Unstoppable Force

Part 4: A Venomous Calamity

Epilogue

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