The Unmaking at Sparrow Lake
To divide their lives, a separated couple meets at their winter cabin. But the blizzard has other plans.
Introduction
This script adapts "The Unmaking at Sparrow Lake," transforming a prose narrative rich in internal monologue into a visually driven screenplay. By converting Arthur's internal pressure into the physical struggle of his sedan on ice and translating the couple's emotional distance into the blocking of a scene, this exercise highlights the core tenets of adaptation. It serves our project's goal of fostering digital literacy by demonstrating how text-based stories are re-engineered for visual media, emphasizing the "show, don't tell" principle essential for screenwriting.
The Script
SCENE 1
EXT. ACCESS ROAD - DAY
A sensible, late-model sedan STRUGGLES for traction.
Tires SPIN against unplowed gravel.
ARTHUR HOWELL (45), wearing a thin city coat, grips the steering wheel. His knuckles are white.
The car SHUDDERS.
Arthur exhales. A cloud of breath forms in the frigid air.
EXT. CABIN - DAY
The sedan sits parked where the plow line ends.
Arthur trudges through knee-deep snow. A briefcase BANGS awkwardly against his leg.
The landscape is monochromatic. Grey sky. White snow. Black spruce trees.
Arthur reaches the porch. He fumbles with a brass key.
He inserts it into the lock. He pauses. Hesitates.
He turns it.
The mechanism CLICKS.
INT. CABIN - CONTINUOUS
Darkness.
Arthur pushes the door open.
The smell of cold stone and old woodsmoke rushes out.
He steps inside. He does not turn on the lights.
He sets the briefcase on a long pine table. The LATCHES SNAP open, unnervingly loud in the silence.
Arthur checks his watch. He taps the face.
EXT. CABIN - DAY
A low, GUTTURAL GROWL cuts through the wind.
Headlights sweep across the cabin logs.
A heavy-duty pickup truck backs up to the porch steps with practiced ease.
The engine CUTS.
ELLEN MARCH (43) steps out. She wears a heavy red-and-black checkered jacket and a wool hat.
She grabs two cardboard boxes from the bed of the truck.
INT. CABIN - CONTINUOUS
Arthur watches through the window. He straightens his coat. Buttons it.
The front door GROANS open.
Ellen enters. She kicks snow from her boots on a mat that reads 'GO AWAY'.
She drops the boxes next to his briefcase.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Arthur.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Ellen. The roads were clear, I trust?
<center>ELLEN</center>
Until the turnoff. You’re lucky you didn’t get the sedan stuck.
She opens a box. Rolls of colored stickers spill out. Red. Blue. Yellow. Green.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Shall we begin in the kitchen? I’d like to be back on the highway before dark.
She pulls on thick work gloves.
<center>ELLEN</center>
The forecast mentioned flurries.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
By all means. Lead the way.
INT. KITCHEN - MOMENTS LATER
A cast iron skillet hangs from a hook.
Arthur points to it.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
The skillet.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Blue.
Arthur peels a blue sticker. He presses it onto the handle.
Ellen picks up a worn wooden salad bowl.
<center>ELLEN</center>
This was my grandmother’s.
She slaps a red sticker on the base.
Arthur touches an espresso machine.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Mine.
Ellen nods.
She points to a butcher block.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Mine.
Arthur picks up a wine glass from a set.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Yellow?
<center>ELLEN</center>
Yellow.
Arthur applies the sticker.
Outside, the wind begins to MOAN. A low, keen sound.
Arthur glances at the window. The light is dimming. Greyer.
Tiny snowflakes drift past the glass.
He checks his phone.
The screen reads: NO SERVICE.
INT. GREAT ROOM - LATER
The room is spotted with colored dots.
Blue on the armchair. Red on the standing lamp. Yellow on the antique map.
Ellen stands before a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.
<center>ELLEN</center>
There are seventy-four titles I would like to retain. You may have the rest.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
A list is... efficient. Thank you.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Efficiency is the goal. This is not a wake, Artie. It is a logistical exercise.
She walks to a large kilim rug. She taps it with her boot.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Yellow. It will fetch a decent price.
WHOOSH.
A violent GUST rattles the windowpanes like shaking bones.
The snow outside is no longer drifting. It is driving horizontally. A white blur.
Ellen freezes. She looks at the window.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Those are not flurries.
Ellen walks to the door. She cracks it open.
A ROAR of wind and snow surges in.
She slams it shut. Leans against it.
<center>ELLEN</center>
We should have listened to the alerts. This is a whiteout.
ZZZ-POP.
The lights flicker.
They die.
Total darkness.
The HUM of the refrigerator cuts out. The silence inside is absolute.
The ROAR outside is deafening.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Well.
INT. KITCHEN - CONTINUOUS
Pitch black.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Flashlight. Junk drawer. To the right of the sink.
Arthur shuffles forward.
THUD.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Ah!
<center>ELLEN</center>
Coffee table.
Arthur reaches the counter. He fumbles with a drawer.
CLATTER.
He finds a heavy metal cylinder. CLICKS it on.
A weak yellow beam cuts the dark.
It finds Ellen by the hearth. She holds a box of matches.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
The generator?
<center>ELLEN</center>
Fuel line froze two winters ago. We never fixed it.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Right. The fire, then.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Wood is on the porch.
INT. GREAT ROOM - NIGHT
Firelight dances on the log walls.
Arthur and Ellen sit on the floor, wrapped in wool blankets.
They eat chili from a can, passing a single spoon back and forth.
The storm HOWLS outside.
Ellen stares into the flames.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Do you remember the first time we came up here? Before we bought the land?
Arthur stiffens.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
It rained. For three days.
<center>ELLEN</center>
You read Moby Dick. You did all the voices.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
My Captain Ahab was legendary.
<center>ELLEN</center>
He sounded like a pirate with a head cold.
A beat of silence. The fire POPS.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Why did you do it, Artie?
Arthur stops eating. He sets the can down.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
It wasn't working, Ellen. We were orbiting each other. Two planets in a decaying orbit.
<center>ELLEN</center>
I am not asking for a poetic abstraction. I am asking for a reason. You just... stopped. You gave up.
Arthur turns to her. His face is flushed in the firelight.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Gave up? I drowned. The silence in this house was a weapon. I spent every day trying to find a crack in the wall you built.
Ellen pulls the blanket tighter.
<center>ELLEN</center>
That wall was holding me together. When you lost your job, when your father died... I became the manager. I disappeared into it. And you never noticed.
Arthur looks down at his hands.
<center>ELLEN</center>
And then came the emails.
Arthur flinches.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Ellen...
<center>ELLEN</center>
Was she easier? Than the hollowed-out woman with the wall?
Arthur stares into the fire.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
It was a colossal failure of character. A pathetic, cowardly act. It had nothing to do with her.
He looks her in the eye.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
And I have never, for one second, forgiven myself for it.
Ellen holds his gaze. The wind RATTLES the glass.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Yes. It is.
She turns her back to him. Lays down. Pulls the blanket over her head.
INT. GREAT ROOM - DAWN
Silence.
Pale, clean grey light filters through the windows.
Arthur stands at the glass. He scrapes away a patch of frost.
Outside, the world is buried in pristine white drifts. The storm is gone.
Ellen sits up on the rug. She looks tired.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
It’s over.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Yes.
Arthur moves to the propane stove. He lights a burner. BLUE FLAME.
He heats water. Pours it into two mismatched mugs.
He hands one to Ellen. Their fingers brush.
She accepts it.
They stand by the window, sipping tea.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
What do we do with all this?
Ellen looks around the room. At the stickers. The books. The life.
<center>ELLEN</center>
We can’t keep it. Neither of us. It would be a haunting.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
A haunting. Yes.
<center>ELLEN</center>
We sell it. As is. The furniture, the books, the salad bowl. We sell the whole memory and walk away clean.
Arthur nods. He exhales, a long, deep breath.
<center>ARTHUR</center>
Okay. We sell it.
In the distance, a sound.
CLANK. SCRAPE.
A mechanical RUMBLE grows closer.
Ellen turns from the window. Her eyes are clear.
<center>ELLEN</center>
Right then, Arthur. Let’s figure out how we begin.
What We Can Learn
This script illustrates the difficulty of adapting internal conflict into external action. In the source text, Arthur's feelings of inadequacy are described through introspection about his car and coat. In the script, these must be rendered as physical beats: the sedan spinning its tires, the visual contrast of his thin coat against the snow, and the tactile detail of white knuckles. The "wall" Ellen built, a metaphor in the text, becomes a literal blocking choice where she turns her back or uses the blanket as a shield, demonstrating how screenwriting requires physicalizing abstract emotional states.
The adaptation process highlights the necessity of restructuring pacing for visual impact. The short story meanders through memories while they sticker items, but the script compresses this into a montage-like sequence of "Point, Sticker, Move" to establish the rhythm of their estrangement. The climax is sharpened by removing the narrator's commentary on their feelings, leaving only the dialogue and the silence (the "beats") to carry the weight of the revelation, showing how film relies on the unsaid—the subtext—rather than the narrator's explanation of the "truth."
From a media literacy perspective, this conversion demonstrates how formatting dictates production reality. By using specific sluglines (INT./EXT.) and capitalizing sound cues (WIND HOWLS, TIRES CRUNCH), the writer is not just telling a story but issuing technical instructions to the sound designer and location manager. The strict "observability" rule forces the student to understand that in film, if a camera cannot record it, it does not exist, thereby teaching the fundamental difference between the omniscient novelistic voice and the objective cinematic lens.