Riding high from placing as a Finalist in the Page Turner Screenplay Competition, I didn’t want the ride to end. I was wasting no time looking for more contests to enter. I saw that the Scriptapalooza competition had a deadline coming up, and that it too was offering analysis and coverage on submissions as one of its submission options, my head was in full analysis mode of how I was planning on entering.
So when I found an email waiting for me announcing a scoring change for both Dig Down and Lock the Doors, I was caught off guard, because I had already moved on to the next wave of submissions. I was taken even more aback when I saw the result.
I PLACED AS A FINALIST AGAIN!!!
As a reminder, this was the contest that I had disagreed with some of the assumptions they had made when they provided feedback. I had one aspect in particular had been taken so far out of context, and with the Page Turner deadline looming, had decided to abandon revisions and resubmission because I felt it was better to focus on a contest that I saw more eye to eye with. I had just expected to get the standard “we’re sorry, we had so many great entries, its hard to choose, but we didn’t pick yours” types of rejection letters.
When I saw I placed as a finalist, it did help reshape my perspective on the notes. When I read it, I believed they just assumed the worst in me (not as a writer, as a human), so the placement made me rethink that their note was more out of concern about how the diction – this was from a character who just had their jaw broken – might come across to others, and not necessarily what they believed.
What’s more, Lock the Doors placed with an honorable mention, which I felt was fair because this wasn’t a horror specific contest, and I wouldn’t expect the genre to score well in it. The fact that it did gave me a sense of validation. It no longer felt like a fluke that Lock the Doors placed as a finalist in the first contest I entered it into.
Also, with Dig Down, I was now two for two in placing as a finalist in the two contests that had concluded, with one more still to go. And in the case of the Santa Barbara contest, I felt a sense of redemption in the choices I made in telling the story.
I couldn’t wait to enter another contest.