Although my bold claims that everything was going to go my way while on vacation were dashed when I got the results from the Toronto International Film Festival and found my screenplay had not been selected, I still felt like I was in a really good place. The feedback I had gotten from the first contest I had entered was mostly positive, and I placed as a finalist. Not getting selected didn’t even feel like a setback, it was on a draft that hadn’t implemented the changes I’d made, and horror wasn’t likely to have a strong showing at a competition as prestigious as TIFF.
I felt the best placement for Lock the Doors in screenplay competitions would be in contests actually for horror scripts. And so, I preceded to enter my script into two more horror screenwriting contests. I felt like I was putting myself in a great position to succeed.
Some time went by, and the deadline for the earlier contest arrived. I opened the email and my eyes immediately honed in on “Unfortunately…”
Whoa! What was going on here?
All of a sudden, the contest where I was selected as a finalist was the outlier. This actually was starting to become crushing because it had been the first competition I had entered Lock the Doors into. I still felt like I could dismiss the results of Toronto, as I would readily admit my script didn’t fit what they were looking for. But now this contest, with its focus purely on horror, was telling me my script didn’t fit their competition either.
At this point, I knew what was best wasn’t to just continue submitting my script into more competitions. It also wasn’t to just give up and stop applying at all. I had gotten some much valued feedback, but…was it enough feedback? And, more importantly, was it the right analysis.
I knew this was going to take more than just another readthrough of the screenplay with my own eyes. Having written it, and adapted it, and gone through so many drafts, I was too close to it. I needed objective, professional, analysis.
I’ll describe what that was, next time.