His father was Richard Abrams, a Chief Master Sergeant in the US Air Force, who did three tours of duty in Vietnam and received the Bronze Star.

Abrams grew up in Durham where he starred in stage plays at Northern High School and the Duke University Summer Theater, including productions of Flowers for Algernon, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Lion in Winter, Dirty Linen and the New-Found-Land, and The Hound of the Baskervilles.

At Guilford, Abrams acted in and directed a number of plays, including Tartuffe, Look Homeward Angel, Endgame, The Taming of the Shrew, No Exit, and Six Characters in Search of an Author.

After completing his undergraduate degree Abrams studied theater in the Masters program at Northwestern University where he starred in productions of The Wakefield Mystery Cycle and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.

Abrams has sold numerous feature film screenplays in varied genres including western Have Gun Will Travel for Warner Bros., historic adventure The Captain's Wife for Fox 2000, and The American Princess for New Line Cinema, The Battle of Ono for John Woo and Terence Cheng, horror film Cave for Working Title, sci-fi action Metal Machine for producer James Jacks at Universal, kids action comedy Gameboy Charlie for Bruckheimer producer, Chad Oman, and action film Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball (2011) for Universal Pictures, among others.