My writing career began out of necessity. I had just been hired as a teacher and wrestling coach at a large high school in Sandy, Utah. When I received my first paycheck, I was devastated. I had a wife, two children, and a mortgage. There just wasn’t enough money to go around.
So, my wife and I had a pow-wow. We sat down and tried to come up with something else I could do to make ends meet. The year before, I had taken a writing class at the University of Santa Clara and wrote a piece on wrestling, which the class seemed to really enjoy. We decided that I would write a screenplay about wrestling.
My wife, Dickilyn, bought me a second-hand typewriter and a card table. We cleared out a small walk-in closet, and I went to work writing. My first year as a teacher, I wrote the movie Take Down starring Lorenzo Llamas, Maureen McCormick, and the late, great Edward Herrmann. When it hit the theaters it outgrossed Star Wars’ box office receipts in Utah. It was later distributed by Disney’s distribution arm, Buena Vista.
Now I was a bona fide screenwriter. My next script was a football story titled Hoodwink, about an aging quarterback who fakes his death, then goes on to win the Super Bowl, which we optioned (an option is when you rent a script to a producer for a certain amount. If he doesn’t do something with it, he has the option to renew). With that option, we made some extra money that helped us get by.
Next, I wrote a romantic comedy entitled Rainy Daze,the story of a young man whose wife leaves him and forces him to find a place to live, rent-free in an attic apartment over a mortuary in exchange for picking up dead bodies at night. We also optioned that script and made extra money.
Then I had my big break when I wrote The Impostor,starring Anthony (Tony) Geary, well known for his role as the other half of the legendary Luke and Laura, the supercouple on the hit soap opera General Hospital. It was an ABC World Premiere Movie of the week, which played nationally on TV. We made more money on that film than I made all year teaching and coaching. We finally decided to leave teaching and pursue screenwriting full time. That was almost twenty films ago.
To date, I’ve been fortunate to have had films on HBO, HBO Family, Disney, Showtime, ABC, BYUTV, NICKELODEON, STARZ, VISN, and PAX, and eleven films featured on Netflix.
So, what’s next? I’ve written all my life and have unproduced screenplays that I believe are as good as or better than the screenplays I have had produced into movies. That is what this article is about: to introduce you to some of the books I have enjoyed writing.
For adult readers: Beyond the Grave is one of, I think, my most creative and commercial novels. It is what Hollywood would call a high-concept idea. It is the gripping story of Marty Fratano, who has been framed for killing his son’s high school basketball coach and sentenced to life in prison with no hope of parole. To add to his despair, his small town has turned against his wife and two sons. But never underestimate a desperate man without hope. After watching a TV show where three different people, including a blind woman, a young girl, and a policeman, relate their near-death experiences, Marty comes up with an outrageous and unthinkable plan to try to find the murdered coach in the afterlife and discover who the coach’s real killer is.
This is what Keith Merrill, an Academy Award winning filmmaker had to say about Beyond the Grave after reading it:
Beyond the Grave is one of the most original, compelling, and thought-provoking stories you may ever read. Eric Hendershot has created a cast of characters that are fresh and unforgettable. He has imagined a premise so daring and unthinkable, it unfurls like a movie in your mind. I look forward to seeing this extraordinary novel on the big screen.
If Beyond the Grave raises an eyebrow, click HERE to find the book on Amazon.
And finally, for kids and adults: The Ice Maker That Wouldn’t Quit. This is the incredible story told by fourth-grader Bucky Walters about how his refrigerator’s ice maker turned the hottest town in the world into a mini North Pole. This book is guaranteed to stretch the imagination of everyone who reads it.
