Hollywood Is Using Reddit to Find New Writers and Stories

The Internet is a vast place full of aspiring writers and people with dreams of going to Hollywood. Recently, the entertainment industry has been taking notice through places like Reddit's r/nosleep and even other websites like Wattpad. 

We saw the viral Twitter thread by Zola turned into a successful and well-reviewed film, and as Hollywood mines for the popular intellectual property they can sell to studios, they're tracking what gets upvoted across the internet to see how they can spin it. 

Netflix snatched up We Used to Live Here, with Blake Lively set to star, after the story was posted on r/nosleep by freelance animator Marcus Kliewer, who was writing during the pandemic when his work shut down. 

That story sounds amazing, but it's similar to dozens that popped over the last year as Hollywood tries to capitalize on creatives. 

This is great news for people living anywhere outside Hollywood looking to make an impression. Reddit is a free forum, so unlike paid sites where you host scripts or stories, you can take a bunch of shots for no cost at all. 

Writer Matt Query posted “My Wife & I Bought a Ranch” to r/nosleep, and then the calls came in from Hollywood. He told Indiewire, “I definitely did not expect it to turn into this kind of opportunity. My hopes were that the story would simply be well received by the nosleep community and that maybe those folks would be interested in reading something else from me down the road.”

There are almost 15 million members on r/nosleep, so it can be hard to stand out, but posts there are flourishing and it's definitely an outlet where you can be seen. 

Have you had any success there? Let us know in the comments.