Jesse McClain
Screenwriter of “The Corked Incident”
Meet the Creator
A huge thank you to Jesse for these thoughtful answers and for giving us a glimpse behind the scenes of your work. We at Hollywood Indie Festival are cheering you on as you continue to create. Enjoy the interview below!
In one sentence, what is The Corked Incident — and what’s the central mystery hook that pulls us in?
The Corked Incident is a neuroscience, murder. Mystery where seven neurology colleagues get together to complete the next year‘s on-call schedule when one of the neurology providers mysteriously dies, and the others are trapped and tasked with solving the murder.
What inspired you to set a murder mystery around neurology providers at a lake house, and how did the “on-call schedule” premise come to you?
Every year, my colleagues and I get together to complete the next year‘s on-call schedule. This is both for the hospital scheduling purposes as well as our outpatient scheduling purposes. Because the schedule can be so grueling at times, we try and get together and make it fun while picking the weekends and holidays in which we wanna work. So I’m coming up with a wine/neurology murder mystery. I thought what a great setting but then to base it around our neurology On Call schedule while also infusing wine around it.
Your logline promises “neurology meets enology.” How did your wine expertise influence the tone, clues, or structure of the story?
Most of my writings in magazines, as well as books have been wine themed. And I always believed when writing the books that turn out best are ones that you’re an expert in your field. Give them my extensive experiencing in neurology and with wine. I thought what a great idea then to fuse the two together.
Who is Jamie, and what does their death reveal about the group dynamic (without spoilers)?
Jamie is absolutely me. When I originally wrote the novel, I actually used all of our real names but working in healthcare and after my wife reviewed the book, she recommended I change the names to protect the innocent, no pun intended. So when transitioning the screenplay from the book, the names changed. But so did the names in the book. Jamie, the character who dies was me —- someone kills me.
What are the core themes beneath the whodunit layer — power, hierarchy, guilt, ambition, professional pressure, reputation?
The theme with this whodunit is basically betrayal. See, these neurology professionals who get together all uncover dark secrets within each one of them, which makes trust or rather distrust amongst the group a growing concern.
How did your real-world clinical experience shape the characters’ behavior under stress and the realism of the investigation?
My On Call experience in neurology certainly helped with the design of our main character’s death. as well as the investigation includes surrounding his death. For those that may work neurology, some of the clues are easier to pick up than others however, you do not have to be a healthcare professional of any kind to enjoy this mystery/thriller and to try and develop guesses as to who you think the murderer could be.
The story is described as “twisty” and “wine-soaked.” How do you balance suspense with moments of humor, flavor, or atmosphere?
I think the humor is more around how the characters interact with each other. The atmosphere is mostly heavy given a murder/death occurred , but also uncomfortable given how our character characters begin to accuse others regarding their involvement.
What was the biggest writing challenge: plotting the mystery, building believable suspects, or pacing the tension in a contained setting?
So this was my first screenplay; and transferring the novel to screenplay was certainly my biggest challenge. Revealing a few clues, but not giving the entire story away was probably the greatest challenge. And while I went along and edited the screenplay, I had to continually reread the screenplay to ensure my edits didn’t mess up a plot line earlier in the piece. That being said every time I made an edit, I had to reread the screenplay for continuity, which was quite an arduous process.
If this became a film or limited series, what would you want audiences to say after the final reveal?
I never saw it coming — I would like to think it would be akin to Hitchcock or Shyamalan.
What scripts, films, or authors influenced your approach to suspense — especially in ensemble, bottle-style mysteries?
Honestly, probably my biggest influence for the screenplay/movie was probably the movie Clue combined with the ending of Psycho.