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Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest – One Week Extension!

Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest – One Week Extension!

Parting is such sweet sorrow… and we can’t bear to say goodbye to our Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest just yet. So as a result, we’ve decided to give this contest a one week extension!

You’ve now got until Sunday March 8th to submit, giving yourself a chance to win great prizes from us here at WriteMovies – not to mention the prestige of becoming one of our winners!

We’ve talked enough about what the contest prizes are in our newsletters and articles – but if you need a reminder, there’s $2000 up for grabs for our Grand Prize winner, plus a year of free script development and guaranteed pitching to industry for our top three scripts!

Our Director, Ian Kennedy, will be sharing some of his Hollywood/LA diary with us over the next few weeks, with news of meetings at major studios and with elite producers, giving you insight into what goes on behind the scenes at WriteMovies. Make sure you don’t miss out, so you know how we present our winners to industry.

And in the meantime, put yourself in the best possible position by entering our contest! The window of opportunity is still open… for the moment. Click here to submit by Sunday March 8th for your chance to win the WriteMovies Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest!

Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest – One Week Extension!

Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest – One Week to Go!

Have you entered the WriteMovies Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest yet? If not, you’d better move fast – there’s just one week to go until the final deadline, which is coming up this Sunday 1st March!

It’s always easy to miss a deadline, especially when you want your script to be as good as it can get. You get stuck into the editing, polishing every last scene right down to the smallest word – and the next thing you know, you’ve missed your chance. The deadline has passed!

That’s why we always make sure to let you know when one is coming up. The Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest has been a great one for us so far, especially with the inclusion of our latest genre prize – the Romance and Comedy Award 2020 – and we’re eager to see what else you’ve got for us. Make sure you get those scripts in!

With a $2000 Grand Prize on the line, plus free script development, guaranteed pitching to industry, and InkTip prizes for our top three scripts, there’s plenty to be won. We’re already looking forward to working with our next batch of winners. And who knows, one of them could be you…

Click here to visit the main contest page and submit your script to the Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest. Remember, you’ve only got until Sunday March 1st!

Announcing… the Romance and Comedy Award winner!

WriteMovies Romance and Comedy Award 2020 – One Week to Go!

It seems like just yesterday that we were announcing the third WriteMovies genre prize: the Romance and Comedy Award 2020. But the final deadline is already here – you’ve got until the end of this Sunday, February 9th, to submit your scripts!

If you’re feeling in a funny mood or a romantic one with Valentine’s Day coming up – or even a bit of both – then this is the contest for you. We’ll be accepting scripts in the romance, comedy, and rom-com genres – so if you think you’ve got what we’re looking for, make sure you submit by the deadline!

There are great prizes to be won, too. Our winner will receive two sets of Development Notes from our expert script analysts, further advice to fine-tune their work, and guaranteed pitching to industry. Plus, all submissions receive FREE, automatic entry to the Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest!

The winner of our last genre prize, the Horror Award 2019, was MONGER by David Axe, and he also walked away with the Grand Prize in the Fall 2019 Screenwriting Contest: $2000! If you’d like to follow in his footsteps, then this is your chance.

WriteMovies has been helping writers succeed since 1999, and we’d love to help you, too. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to get your script out there. Click here to submit to the Romance and Comedy Award 2020 by this Sunday, February 9th!

MONGER by David Axe – Q&A with our Fall 2019 winner!

MONGER by David Axe – Q&A with our Fall 2019 winner!

The winner of our Horror Award 2019 was also the Grand Prize Winner of our Fall 2019 Screenwriting Contest: MONGER by David Axe!

Having already introduced it here, we thought we’d get a more in-depth look at the project with a Q&A with David…

To find out what inspired the project, how he went about writing it, and his advice for writers, take a look below. And if you’d like to give yourself a chance to follow in his footsteps and win our Grand Prize of $2000, enter our Winter 2020 Screenwriting Contest by March 1st!


 

What was your inspiration for writing MONGER?

I borrowed from my own experiences. I was a war correspondent for many years and spent time with combat troops in several war zones. In 2011 I was riding in a U.S. Army vehicle in Logar province in Afghanistan when a bomb exploded underneath it. I was fine but many of the soldiers in the vehicle were not. More generally, I’m no stranger to trauma, guilt and alcoholism. I wanted to write about these things while also giving them substance. As in, a monster.

 

Why did you choose to write a horror movie?

Horror stretches the rules of everyday life, allowing a writer to play in a much wider space than, say, a strictly naturalistic drama would do. I wanted to give form to guilt. I wanted my characters to literally fight a monster that embodies their worst trauma. Hence horror.

 

What was the writing process, and how long did it take?

I write steadily, from beginning to end, over a period of a couple of months. Once I’ve got a solid first draft, I get some notes from readers I trust. In the case of MONGER, I hosted a table read that was very helpful. Then revisions lasting a few weeks. The whole process of writing MONGER took maybe four months.

 

How have your own experiences as a filmmaker informed your writing?

I’ve made a few indie features, most recently LECTION. The more I direct, the more I simplify my writing. As a director, I want a very clean script with clear conflict and strong characters. The texture and nuance come from performance, photography and production design. The writing should be a robust, strong framework. In other words, the director in me wants the writer in me to not overthink it.

 

What would be your advice to other screenwriters?

Write like it’s your job and you’re going to die soon, which you are. Get used to rejection and being ignored. Don’t be shy about showing your work. Be humble when people offer notes but also learn to smile and nod and ignore bad notes. Try everything you can think of to con someone, anyone, into producing your script. And if no one will shoot your script, consider doing it yourself. At the very least, you’ll learn a lot. Then sit down and write another one. And another. And another.


 

Writing Insights: The Art of Exposition Part 2 – Make Exposition Interesting

Writing Insights: The Art of Exposition Part 2 – Make Exposition Interesting

In Part 1 of this Writing Insights series, we discussed how exposition is often a necessary evil in scriptwriting for conveying information that your audience needs to know, and how sometimes it’s better to use the visual medium of film instead.

But what happens when visuals aren’t enough? What do you do when you have to use dialogue instead? The answer is to make exposition so interesting that the audience doesn’t notice that it’s there – they’re too engrossed to get bored by the dreaded “info-dump” or feel that the characters are speaking in a way that might otherwise seem unnatural.

There are quite a few different ways to make exposition interesting, though. Here are a few of our hints and tips on how to go about it…

  • Ignite the audience’s curiosity about what you’re about to reveal. Pose it as a question – for example, THE MATRIX‘s famous: “What is The Matrix?” – and make the audience want to know the answer. Then, when the answer is given, they’ll already be interested!
  • Another trick used by THE MATRIX is including exposition in situations that are exciting – containing striking visuals and action – so that the dialogue is enhanced by what’s going on around it. Morpheus could have explained the rules of The Matrix to Neo over a nice cup of coffee – but instead, he does it through a demonstration of kung-fu.
  • Make your protagonist be an outsider. As mentioned in Part 1, we don’t tell people things that they already know – but if there’s someone who doesn’t know the world or situation, then you’ve got a good excuse. And that means that it no longer feels unnatural!
  • Think about what else you might be able to convey through the exposition itself. Character is best revealed through action – the things we choose to do, the decisions we make – so consider what you might be revealing about the character who is talking. The titular character of the TV show SHERLOCK comes out with huge amounts of exposition, but it feels fine because it’s in character to show off and it tells us a lot about who he is.

So there are our hints and tips to make exposition interesting. Keep these in mind the next time you’re writing a script, and make sure that your dialogue shines!

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