
The next day, I was like, “Oh god, I want to give this to other people.” Obviously I had recommended the book to everybody, but there’s a way to transplant that to film and then carry it to a larger audience. I had to walk around the block a couple of times afterward and just hug my friends. I was in tears, and I was both heartbroken and uplifted. I made the mistake of sitting down and thinking, “I’ll just read one.” Actually, I had to stop in the middle of the book when I got to “Story of Your Life” because it had a very profound emotional effect on me. What other stuff has he done?” I bought a collection of short stories I found on Amazon and a couple days later, it showed up at my door. I’d come across it and devoured it and thought, “This guy’s great. I found out about Ted Chiang first through another story called “Understand” that was just on some online magazine. How did Ted Chiang’s short story come to you, and what about it resonated with you? How 'Arrival' And 'Stranger Things' Could Help Bring Shawn Levy's 21 Laps Racing Toward The Oscars And Emmys Speaking with Deadline, Heisserer breaks down his writing process, his experiences in the Science and Entertainment Exchange, and the reasons the short story format translates so well to the big screen.

government to enter a first contact scenario with an alien race. Seeing the final product on screen, it’s evident that adapting Chiang’s short story was no easy feat-the film, occurring on multiple timelines, on scales grand and intimate, follows a master linguist tasked by the U.S. With the acclaimed, intellectual sci-fi film, eventually re-titled Arrival, Heisserer has seemingly broken out of a box, demonstrating further his ability to handle dense and complicated material, and to turn any genre on its head.

A screenwriter with an interest in genre storytelling, previously known for various outings in the horror genre, Eric Heisserer fought a lengthy uphill battle in pitching a film based on Ted Chiang’s short story, “Story of Your Life”, before director Denis Villeneuve came to the helm.
