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I had a big decision staring me in the face when it came to selecting screenplay contests to enter for Dig Down. These competitions were providing a lot more options and customization for feedback than the horror specific contests I had entered the previous year. It was a good dilemma to have…but it was still a dilemma.

The biggest choices facing me came from the Santa Barbara Screenplay Competition and the Page Turner Screenplay Competition because of the variety of feedback options they offered. Santa Barbara had the most, but it felt like an easier choice to make because of that, and I ended up selecting the option that provided the judge’s score and notes.

Page Turner was the one that posed a challenge to me. There were really only two choices: receive notes on my screenplay, or have an over the phone consultation with the judge who read my script to go over its strength and weaknesses. Similar to the Finish Line Script Contest, there was also a minimum pages of notes and feedback I received.

Page Turner was not the only contest that entered this experience to talk with a professional. Santa Barbara had similar options, from a writer’s room analysis of the script, all the way to a 90 minute live consultation with the head of the contest. However, although it was a cheaper alternative for this level of discussion, I had opted not to enter Santa Barbara this way, as I felt 90 minutes wouldn’t be enough to really cover the script as they indicated, which was line by line (for clarification, I do feel that an hour and a half is ample time to discuss most scripts on a deep level, including Dig Down).

This would be a big commitment though. This option was for several hundred dollars. It was something I could afford to do, but as I’ve said in previous posts, I felt I was still at the infancy of my screenwriting abilities, which was why I was looking for feedback in the first place. Blowing through a lot of cash to find out in depth what I could’ve found out through regular feedback didn’t seem like the best use of my time and money. At the same time, I had just entered two other contests that would be providing me the same level of feedback if I didn’t chose this consultation.

The goal for these multiple entries would be to see if they addressed similar areas that needed improvement, or identified the same positive aspects. Essentially, multiple submissions would help me determine if I was on the right track, and hone in on what needed work.

But at some point, would the notes become redundant? Overkill? Wouldn’t I benefit if some of the feedback I received provided analysis beyond the surface level, and addressed the core of what might be keeping the script from its full potential?

I gave this contest its own blog post because of the weight of this monumental decision. In fact, it was such a big choice to make that even though I had found these contests at the same time, this was the last one I entered. Part of that was because I had wanted to get someone else’s advice on what I should do.

There was a woman I worked with who I had called my career soulmate. We both had the same mindset of the 9 to 5 job that gradually built up a pension you could hope to live off of through retirement. I felt most everyone else I asked would tell me to “just go for it, you only live once,” or “nah, you shouldn’t, that’s a lot of money.” And while those were the two options, I felt that’s where the discussion would begin and end with them, and this decision was too important to base on an instantaneous reaction without any real reflection.

I felt talking to someone who knew me and understood my mindset, and could propose points and pose questions to help me get to the route of what I wanted and should do was what I really needed. Sadly, she was not available as I watched the days tick off the calendar.

I was on my own.

So, I posed this to myself: Yes, I am already getting analysis from other contests. And yes, this option, while providing more than the other forms of feedback, is pricey. But, do I believe in my writing, and in myself? Do I believe Dig Down is a strong story, and that this could be made into a movie one day? And if so, would I then care if I spent a little more than I wanted to at the start of this process?

Essentially, I was asking myself if I believed in myself as a writer.

I submitted Dig Down for the phone consultation.

As I mentioned in my last post, after doing some research, I entered my screenplay for Dig Down to three contests right away. All of them provided some level of feedback, most of them offering several different levels.

This abundance was a good dilemma to have, although it did make me think and really contemplate what to go with. As a for instance, one of the contests I entered, Santa Barbara Screenplay Competition, offered an entry for just the script, an entry where you received the judge’s notes and your score, an entry where you received a writer’s room analysis, an entry where you received academy analysis, and an entry where you received a live consultation and line notes.

It might be easy to say just go ahead and sign up for the most extensive feedback and coverage you can get, but each level of analysis provided has a cost to it. And while I felt very good about Dig Down‘s story as a manuscript, this is a whole other medium I had adapted it to, and one that I didn’t have that much experience with.

Judge’s notes and a score might provide the same level of feedback that the script needed to be polished for this form of entertainment that the live consultation did, and at a fraction of the cost.

So with that, I had to really assess what level I really needed at this stage in my screenwriting career, as new as it was. I felt it was important to get the most bang for my buck.

I ended up going with the following: for the Santa Barbara Screenplay Competition, I went with the entry where I would receive the judge’s notes and a score. I felt the score would not only be an honest and fair assessment of my script and myself as a screenwriter, but based on that score, I’d have a sense of how I fared against the other screenwriters who had not only entered, but a rough idea of where I was at when compared to all screenwriters, my reasoning being a score in the 50s would probably mean I had my work cut out for me, and a score in the 90s probably would mean I could get some interest when I started trying to option my script.

I also entered the Finish Line Script Competition, also receiving a guaranteed minimum number of pages of notes on my screenplay. The last screenplay competition I entered was the Page Turner Screenplays Contest. Just like Santa Barbara, this offered multiple levels of feedback, though not as extensive as Santa Barbara. And just like SB, I had a choice to make – go with the feedback option, where I would receive notes of my scripts, or…go with an option to have an extensive analysis of my script, over the phone with the lead judge of the competition.

It was a tremendous opportunity…but it was the priciest. By far.

But I ended up going with it.

I’ll go into my decision on why I went with that option, next time.

As I mentioned in my last post, with a completed and revised screenplay for Dig Down, I decided the best option for myself was to enter it into screenplay competitions. Yeah, yeah, I know. I might lack some imagination when it comes to figuring out what to do with completed scripts, and I might just be a one trick pony following the same formula.

I felt I was still in the same boat though, not really knowing where I stood in terms of the quality of my screenplay. This medium was still relatively new to me. The only screenplays I’d ever read were three that I’d written, Lock the Doors and Dig Down, as well as an idea that I’d written as a screenplay 17 years ago called On the River, and the script for Crawl, which I downloaded and read when looking for examples of horror screenplays the previous year after submitting Lock the Doors to competitions.

There was still this need for feedback, so I could hone in on what needed the most attention. Screenplay contests themselves would do that as it would compare me against the field of other hopefuls who were also pitching their stories. And, if I could find some contests that offered specific feedback from the judges, that would help my understanding all the more.

I actually found I was throwing myself into the search for competitions more this time around. I think two things greatly contributed to that. The first was, as I mentioned way back in my posts about finding contests for Lock the Doors, I’d entered one, that felt I’d been lackadaisical, letting a week go by before entering another, and even when I entered two more, I had this unshakeable feeling that it was out of guilt for not pursuing it more aggressively sooner.

I guess I wanted to avoid the rut of following a bad habit.

The other aspect that I think contributed to entering more contests was that Dig Down wasn’t horror, and I felt actually fit with what a lot more contests might be looking for. While studios will always be looking for horror projects because they are cheap to produce, they don’t fare well against all the other genres out there in film competitions. However, something like Dig Down, which while a chase story, has a lot of depth to it, could hold its own against other entries. That alone meant there were more options for Dig Down to enter.

I ended up finding three contests, all of which offered not only feedback, but varying levels of feedback. This, in itself, left me with some decisions to ponder. I knew I needed notes, but what level of criticism and analysis was right for me?

I’ll explore the details of the options I was posed with, next time.

Now that I had a completed screenplay for Dig Down, I needed to figure out what to do with it.

While I’d had initial success with the screenplay for Lock the Doors, that sadly didn’t last. And the feedback I’d gotten from screenplay competitions was that if the judge read the entire script, it placed as a finalist, but otherwise, it wasn’t strong enough to keep a reader’s attention.

This was a harsh reality to accept…but it was a reality. I’d heard it said that people reading scripts (actors, producers, directors, studio heads, agents) can sometimes tell within the first page if it’s good. So sticking with the notion that if people just read it, they’d see how good it was, wasn’t a good tactic to get a script optioned and produced. In fairness to all the other screenwriters out there trying to eke out the same living, I’m positive so many of them would also relish the opportunity for those in a position of power to take the time to read their full story and watch everything come together into the masterpiece their screenplay is.

But…that’s not our reality.

In truth, with so many people chasing the dream of writing a screenplay in the hopes that it will one day be made into a movie, those people in who are in those positions of power have to do what they can to screen and weed out all the scripts that come across their desk that they know won’t get any further. And, they have to be brutal about it.

It’s harsh, but…it just means working harder to elevate the screenplay as much as possible so it avoids the junk pile.

Now, unfortunately for me, I found myself in the exact same situation I was in last summer with Lock the Doors, a complete script with no idea as to it’s quality. And just like last summer, I couldn’t think of too many resources that would be able to provide feedback on my script in a timely manner with some level of expertise and authority.

Which meant I felt my best option was…

…you guessed it.

Screenwriting competitions.

I’ll get into the contests I decided to enter next time.

So here I was, I’d say a little over a year after my previous laptop crashed with my only version of a freshly adapted screenplay for Dig Down on it, and what was I doing?

Adapting Dig Down into a screenplay.

It would be fair to criticize the direction of my writing career, or call it stagnant.

And yet, it felt great sitting down to write the screenplay again. As I had mentioned in my previous post, I didn’t have the time needed to devote to a new story, and had to scrap drafting a manuscript I was working on.

I wouldn’t say I was depressed, but I wasn’t in the best of moods during that stretch. I’m usually in a good mood and feeling positive about myself when I’m in the middle of writing something. I think my most upbeat stretches of high school and college were when I was writing stories, especially when I first got to college and really started experimenting with voice and narratives in novels (maybe published one day), and several short stories.

I also felt that with the advice and notes I’d gotten for Lock the Doors, I was catching a lot of things as early as the first (really fourth at this point) draft of Dig Down that I knew would need to be edited out (like all the eye movements in the book)! This allowed me to think up creative ways to focus the camera on what I felt was important in the scenes, something I never had to think about when writing the original stories.

I was in such a good mood with this process that even when, in February of this year, I got the results from the Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Awards and saw that Lock the Doors wasn’t selected again in the final screenplay competition I had entered it into, I wasn’t even fazed. I had already moved on to work on my next project (yes, it was an old project), and if the news had been different-GREAT!-but I was focused on making Dig Down as good as it could be.

I’ll talk about where that left me with the project, next time.

Making the decision to adapt Dig Down into a screenplay a second time was just the change I needed to make in my life. After feeling like I was making no headway in my writing, both in the screenplay competitions I was entering, as well as struggling to write new stories because I was adjusting to my new role and the responsibilities that came with it that left little time to devote the attention a new manuscript needed, this change of pace was like a godsend.

I had a little reluctance retreating back into a story I had already told. Ideally, I would either adapt another one of my books into a screenplay only after Lock the Doors maximized its success, was made into a movie, and I was looking to build on my career as a screenwriter while I was riding high. Short of that, I would save adaptation for a rainy day, when I wasn’t really feeling any new ideas, and just wanted to write something.

Well…it was a downpour.

Despite my sentiments on this pivot, this shift in priorities couldn’t have happened at a better time. Focusing on re-writing the script for Dig Down still allowed me the ability to write, without the requirement of having to think up a whole new world, the conflicts, and how the characters interacted in it, something I knew I still didn’t have time for.

That’s not to say the adaptation was not without its challenges. When I had first written Dig Down, I had sought to tell a basic story of a man running for his life from a deadly rogue’s gallery in a creative way. This unique storytelling wasn’t exactly optimal for screenwriting. So much of what made Rob Rob was his internal monologue, how he reacted to the mayhem around him, but because it was his thoughts, that wasn’t always easy to transfer to film.

Hurdles like this ended up being really beneficial. They transcended the adaptation from a mere copying and pasting into a new format, instead posing challenges to me for every scene: how are you going to get this across on the screen?

The challenge drove me to want to come up with solutions in creative ways, and most importantly, got me out of the rut I felt I’d been in with my writing.