How I Won a Screenplay Contest On My Second Screenplay Ever

I was huddled in a blanket at the front of a large lecture hall in Reno, Nevada. My partner and I were the only ones inside. My entire family was on the giant projector screen in front of us. Two brothers, a sister and her husband, two grandmas, aunts, uncles, mother, and cousins. We were all spending our Saturday afternoon doing the same thing. Reading my screenplay.

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

It takes a lot of work to be a writer. One of my favorite quotes from Corbin Louis(slam poet) is, “To create something is to cut a piece of yourself for the world to hate.” Most of the time, that’s what sharing my writing feels like. People are quick to judge; most writers must invest time to master the craft. This was my second screenplay and some of the only writing I have shared with my family. But this screenplay meant a lot to me. The first one I wrote I did by the books, well by the book “Save the Cat” by Blake Synder, which I have talked about on here before. It was bland and a gateway for me to get into writing screenplays. However, the one my family was reading for the first time, was a passion project. Something I knew would never sell to the big studios, just an extraordinary story.

This was draft number seven of my screenplay, and after two hours of us all playing different characters, we sat around to give feedback and talk about it. I had…