Our Common Thread: The Inspiration, by Kahli Scott

Kahli Scott is a New Zealand based writer who made her debut earlier this year. The novel, Our Common Thread, is a speculative romance set in the film industry. It’s perfect for anyone who’s ever wondered ‘what if?’ - Read on for more on the author’s inspirations...

The world of the film industry is full of “what ifs?”. There are the stories themselves, which start as screenplays sprouted from the imaginations of screenwriters. Multiple drafts, multiple versions. Then these stories transform further, as different eyes interpret them in different ways. First, there are the big picture “what ifs?” that the producers, executives and the director ask in the development and pre-production stages. Then the creative and technical heads of department will each have their own vehicle for expressing the story—the

cinematographer through the camera lenses and lighting; the art director through props and set design; the costume designer through clothes and accessories, and a plethora more. The actors will of course have their own spin on what story they think their characters need to tell. And then there are the editors, who stitch together the fragments they’ve been given to create the final product.

The story that ends up on screen is just one version of a story that could have gone in hundreds of different directions. Scenes and subplots will end up on the cutting room floor. Sometimes, there’ll even be multiple versions of the story that make it into the public sphere—extended editions and director’s cuts. Therein lies the complexity and beauty of stories made for screen.

When I started writing my debut novel, Our Common Thread, it made sense to set it in the world of the film industry. A “what if?” question sits at the heart of the novel: what if your life had turned out differently? This is a question that I’m willing to bet crosses many of our minds, especially as we hit our late twenties or early thirties. This is the period when our decisions are starting to feel set in stone—the career we’ve committed to, our relationship status, whether to have children, where to put down roots, whether to put down roots at all. Just like multiple cuts of a movie, the main character in Our Common Thread—Mattie—gets to explore the answer to this question quite literally, when she finds a portal in the back of her wardrobe that leads her to alternate timelines of her life. The wardrobe is also a fun film metaphor, as Mattie herself works as a wardrobe assistant in the industry—in the main timeline of the novel, she’s working on the set of a Christmas romance movie filming in a cozy small town. And just as the production’s wardrobe department represents multiple characters and multiple lives, so too does what Mattie finds behind her own clothes-hangers. In some timelines, she’s still in the industry. In others, she’s pursued something different. In what world is she the happiest?

I’m no stranger to the behind-the-scenes world of film. In my day job, I’m a government liaison for the film industry, helping productions navigate the various permits, permissions and other logistics they need to film in the town where I live. I’ve seen that the reality of working in the industry is certainly not all red carpets and sparkling lights. It was the practical, tiring, demanding, boots-on-the-ground side of a film production that I wanted to portray in Our Common Thread.

The long days and changing logistics, the nights when a weary crew member might ask themselves, is this what I really want to be doing? On the flipside, I also wanted to show the electric summer camp sense of camaraderie formed among film crew, and the satisfaction of applying your creative or technical skills to bringing a make-believe story to life. Like all jobs, there are good and bad parts of it, and this is the world of Our Common Thread.

We can’t all be lucky (or unlucky?) enough, to find a magical portal in our wardrobes that shows us the alternate versions of our lives—unspooled like dozens of tangled threads or film reels. But in following Mattie’s journey, I found some of the answers I was seeking every time I asked myself what if? I hope readers do too.