Thanks for all your entries to WriteMovies’ Writing Contest 80! 

It’s been an exciting few months reviewing the submissions for WriteMovies’ Writing Contest 80. Now that the journey has reached its conclusion, it’s time to announce our Winners and Honorable Mentions!

Throughout this contest season we’ve received entries across a wide range of genres and tones, from laugh-out-loud comedies to tense thrillers and atmospheric horror, all in a variety of formats, from features to pilots (and shorts too). It’s been a tough decision, but we’ve narrowed it down to our three prize winners!

WMC80 Prize Winners

Honorable Mentions

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

James Patrick Owen

MOVIEOKE

John Mazzullo

PRECURSOR

Steve Brown

SHEPHERDS GONE WILD

Joey Maranto

UP NORTH

Melanie Broder

The top three entries and all award winners have secured fantastic prizes, including a year of script development, guaranteed representation from TalentScout International Management, and pitching to the international industry by a management team with decades of experience and contacts at the heart of the industry!

With the high volume of submissions, competition has been tough – so if you didn’t place this time, don’t be disheartened. Here are a few valuable lessons we saw come up again and again across the contest season:

1) Hook early and make the premise crystal clear.
Strong opening pages don’t just create mood; they quickly orient us in the world, establish tone/genre expectations, and give us a clear inciting incident (or teaser) that makes us lean in. If readers feel lost, or the “real story” arrives too late, even great writing can struggle to gain momentum.

2) Build your story around a protagonist we can track and invest in.
Your lead doesn’t need to be perfect, they can be flawed, messy, even unlikeable, but we do need to understand what they want, what they’re afraid of, and what’s at stake if they fail. Make us care about them. The most memorable scripts paired a clear goal with an emotional anchor that made the conflict matter.

3) Tighten pacing by trimming repetition and trusting subtext.
A common difference between “good” and “great” entries was economy: avoiding overwritten action lines, reducing repeated beats, and cutting dialogue that explains what the audience can already see. Let visuals do more work, keep exposition lean, have conflict on every page and make sure every scene pushes the story forward with a clear purpose.

4) Keep tone and rules consistent – especially in genre work.
Comedy, horror, thriller, sci-fi – whatever you’re writing, audiences will follow you if you set the rules and play fair. Tonal whiplash, unclear world logic, or a third-act pivot that doesn’t feel earned can undercut an otherwise strong concept and dilute the final payoff.

For additional support, explore our Script Consultancy Services or the Elite Mentoring service to tap into the expertise of script analysts and seasoned industry professionals. Click here to learn more!

Or if you’re looking to level up your craft with ongoing guidance, try WriteMovies Academy Lite for daily mentoring for under $5 a day!  Click here to learn more!

Congratulations again to all of our WriteMovies Writing Contest 80 Winners and Honorable Mentions – and thank you to everyone who entered and trusted us with your work.

Anytime Entry Service!

The Contest may have closed, but you can enter at any time! Choose an option below then email WriteMovies your script.

Enter your script at any time at our website for just $49, and you will receive:

• An analysis of the first ten pages of your script, focusing on its key strengths and weaknesses in the key passages that the industry would actually consider before deciding whether to continue.
• A writer evaluation, confirming either that we believe the industry’s analysts would Pass this entry, Consider this entry for representation and pitching (which we will do by entering it in any one of our annual Awards and Prizes this year!)… or that our analyst can immediately Recommend it – guaranteeing you Representation, public promotion and pitching to industry in return for a signed contract to be managed and publicly promoted by us and our partners at TalentScout International Management!

It also guarantees you the chance to win any relevant WriteMovies prize or Award that we announce in 2025 – giving you a second shot at representation, promotion and pitching by the end of the year as our view of your entry and the market develops! And even better than that: if you get a ‘Consider’ outcome, you’ll be allowed to submit a new draft of your project to that contest before it closes – giving you every chance to learn from the feedback you got first time around and nail it before the contest winners are decided.

Enter now at WriteMovies.com – see the options in the right sidebar or navigate to the service you’re interested in!

Email us at info@writemovies.com to enter after payment! Enter a contest directly, or commission a Mentoring/Consultancy service and get free entry with it!

For contests email your script – in PDF or docx format, up to 130 pages with a coverpage including your contact details (a $0.50 surcharge is due per additional page) – or your book document, also stating your name and email address, a short synopsis, and any additional authors. By submitting to us you are accepting our Terms of Service (see the contest pages for information about these) and Privacy Policy (click here).

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