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It’s time to announce our Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award winner! After a vigorous round of decision-making, we’ve finally picked who’s going to receive the prizes: guaranteed pitching to industry, two sets of Development Notes to help take their script to the next level, and more!

It’s been an exhilarating experience diving into your fantasy worlds and sci-fi epics, but although there were a lot of great stories submitted, ultimately we could only have one winner. Don’t forget that all submissions are still in the running for our Spring Contest though, giving you a shot at winning those prizes too!

The sci-fi and fantasy genres are perfect for writers with big imaginations who want to create rules, lore and unique characters . However, it’s also a genre that can provide writers with a lot of tricky problems, such as too much world-building, boring exposition, and a lack of focus on the central theme and story.

Here’s what we learned about your submissions to the Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award – make sure you consider these when writing your sci-fi and fantasy projects in the future:

  • It’s easy to get caught up in your concepts with these genres, but don’t forget to make us care about your characters. There were a number of scripts with great ideas and worldbuilding – but which also failed to get us invested in the characters and therefore lost our interest. We won’t care about the story if we don’t care about the people caught up in it!
  • At the other end of the spectrum: if you’re writing a TV series with an ensemble cast, don’t spend your entire pilot episode introducing characters with no context for how they interconnect. Keep moving the plot forward! Controlling the flow and momentum of the story is crucial for a TV series, and if you can’t manage it in the pilot, it’s likely to cause further problems down the line.
  • One of the most exciting aspects of sci-fi and fantasy is encountering ideas and premises we’ve never seen before. While many writers delivered on that, there were also a significant number which didn’t do anything new, and were instead just treading familiar ground. Choose your concept carefully to take full advantage of the genre – and if you need help, check out our online session about this on July 8th!
  • Your first few pages need to make promises to us about the genre, tone, and key elements of your story. Make sure you follow through on those promises and don’t start doing something different later on; otherwise, you’ll just disappoint your readers. Some scripts in this contest felt muddled because they set things up one way then completely changed in the second act.

That’s enough from us, though. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the winner of the WriteMovies Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award 2021!


EZEKIEL

By Vanisha Renée Pierce

A big congratulations to Vanisha, who has won guaranteed pitching to industry, two sets of Development Notes, and continued script development from us!

We’ll be telling you more about Vanisha and her script soon. Don’t forget to check which of our other Sci-Fi and Fantasy Award entrants will progress to the Spring Contest Quarter-Finals on July 2nd!

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