No Short Cuts

This year I thought a bit of external pressure (and a brief) might help me actually finish a piece of writing. So I entered the NYC Midnight screenwriting competition. They give you prompts for character, genre and subject, as well as a page-limit and a deadline.

In Round 1, you have to produce a script of not more than 12 pages in eight days. Of course, my day job chose this moment to go into overdrive, and I came very close to just backing out of the whole screenplay thing. Especially as my group’s stipulation for character was “a valedictorian”. We don’t have those in the UK, so I had only the foggiest sense of what a valedictorian was, let alone what it might mean for a character.

But an idea came, and I decided what the hell: I’d paid my money (about fifty quid), and had nothing to lose. So over the course of about 24 hours, I turned the idea in my head into a script on the screen – complete with all the problems you’d imagine such a process producing – and sent it in. A cut-off point is a wonderfully liberating thing.

I find myself thrilled beyond all sensible proportion to have been chosen to go through to Round 2. To manage that, your script has to make it into the top five in your group. I came fifth. There are many different groups, all with different briefs, so I’m still one of many contenders. Most of whom, I imagine, are considerably more practised at this sort of thing.

So my odds for Round 2 are … not fabulous. Especially as I have three days to write a new script (maximum eight pages this time) – most of which time is filled with work and family commitments. But it doesn’t matter. I genuinely expected to be left for dead in one of the bloodied ditches of Round 1. So from here on in, to borrow Raymond Carver’s phrase, it’s pure gravy.

You can download my script as a PDF here. Feedback very welcome – the more brutal, the better.