In December 2008, James was announced as a fellow for the Sundance Screenwriters lab, and around 2009 he began working on "Little Birds", loosely basing the film on his own life experiences. James was originally working on an autobiographical project about himself and his best friend who left their small towns and joined a gang in Boston. That film had Justin Timberlake attached to portray James and Nick Cassavetes attached to direct. But James was worried the film would ultimately "glamorize the violent lifestyle" he'd recently left behind, so he wrote Little Birds instead, substituting two fifteen-year-old girls for he and his best friend. He chose to focus on the characters of "Lily" and "Alison" after seeing a teenage girl riding on the back of a bike in the Salton Sea, with James saying "You could just tell that she was on fire and she was never going to get out of there", referencing how he felt about being trapped in his own small town as a kid.