UPDATE (11/19/23): Hocking Hills is now Everly Heights. I’ll keep this page up for historical reasons, but visit the official Everly Heights website for up-to-date info and ways to get involved.

Today, I finally get to lift back the curtain on a project I’ve poured a lot of energy into this year.

Hocking Hills Scripts is a collection of TV pilots and screenplays I’ve developed to showcase my strengths as a writer and build a branded portfolio of my work.

I write these scripts with a few restrictions to bring my writing into focus:

1. Set the story in the fictional town of Hocking Hills, Ohio, based on the small town where I grew up.

2. Include a connection to 1990s nostalgia in plot, setting, character, or theme, since I’ve explored nostalgia and our relationship with it in my work since my college playwriting class.

3. The main conflict should involve the protagonist(s) going through an identity crisis, since I’ve had several myself.

As is often the case, limitations breed creativity, and one lovely side effect to this project is that I’ve created a little shared universe to play in. Characters, locations, and events I create in one script find their way into others. Sometimes a side character even inspires me to give them their own story, as it did with Nosloo The Great in Very Special.

I’m launching HockingHillsScripts.com today with three television pilots, all in different genres.

The Koffee Shop

GENRE: Half-Hour Single Cam Comedy

LOGLINE: In a small town in 1999, a coffee shop serves as the hang out spot for a ragtag collection of punks dealing with the highs and lows of teenage life.

The Last Chance Detective Agency

GENRE: One-Hour Action Dramedy

LOGLINE: When a childhood friend’s visit uncovers a crime ring, it forces a man-child aspiring detective to confront some hard truths.

Very Special

GENRE: Half-Hour Sitcom

LOGLINE: A spoof on 90s sitcoms where one aspect of the situation changes each episode. A teenager blows her first impression and must learn to stop caring what the mean girls think about her before the big dance.

 

Visit HockingHillsScripts.com to read all the scripts now, and look for more videos discussing each of the stories later this week. I’m always open to feedback, especially if you catch a typo! E-mail me at bill@billmeeks.com with your thoughts.

Above all else, I hope you enjoy your visit to Hocking Hills.