The sending-in of info about screenplays and TV scripts continues as more writers want to be included in the upcoming Maximum Z Winter ’24 Script Showcase.
Lots of interest being generated and excitement levels continue to grow, and there’s still 2 weeks to go until the Showcase goes live on December 6.
Here’s how it all works:
The Showcase is a big list of information about spec screenplays and TV scripts. Each listing features the basic details about each script (see info below), including the writer’s email. That’s there in case you’d like to ask them about reading it.
More than a few writers who’ve already sent in appreciate the opportunity to put their work on full display. I’m all about helping out others, and this seems like a fun and effective way to do that.
Bonus – it’s free.
Once the Showcase is up, I’ll do what I can to help spread the word about it, and hope you do the same – especially to shamelessly draw attention to your script being included.
If you want to have your script included, here’s what you need to do:
I’d also like to stress the importance of proofreading your info before sending. Typos are sneaky little devils that show up when you least expect them – especially after the fact, so double- or triple-checking is highly recommended.
Previously-listed scripts are okay, but new ones are encouraged.
A few writers have asked about short scripts. Those are okay as well.
The deadline for sending in is Thursday, December 5, so don’t put off sending in until the last minute.
Have you got a screenplay or TV script that you want the world to know about, but been having trouble in making that happen?
Have I got some good news for you.
One of my main objectives in doing this blog has been to help out other writers however I can. While I can’t connect you with the decision-making muckety-mucks in the industry, what I CAN do is help you spread the word about your script – maybe even that it gets the attention of one of those muckety-mucks.
That’s right, it’s time once again for The Maximum Z Script Showcase! (Winter ’24 edition)
Even better – IT’S FREE. Won’t cost you a thing. Not one hard-earned buck. Not one thin dime. Not one plugged nickel. Not even one red cent.
Starting today through Thursday, December 5, you send in the details about your script, and then on Friday, December 6, a list with all the scripts will be posted. A link to that list will be posted on various social media platforms. If your script is included and you want people to know about it, then you can also copy-and-paste the link and post it on your platforms.
“But what if somebody wants to read my script?” you might ask. Great question. Each writer’s email is included in the details they send in, so if a script catches somebody’s attention and they want to read it, they can contact the writer directly. Win-win.
Here’s how it works:
Email the following info here with the subject line “Maximum Z Winter ’24 Script Showcase”
-Film or TV
-Title
-Writer(s)
-Genre(s)
-Logline
-Awards (if applicable) – limit of 5
-your email
That’s it.
And here are two very important details to keep in mind:
-ONLY ONE SCRIPT PER PERSON
and
-DO NOT SEND THE SCRIPT!!
Previously-listed scripts are okay, but new scripts are encouraged.
Also highly recommended – PROOFREAD YOUR EMAIL BEFORE SENDING!! Is all the info correct? Any typos? I’ve received more than a few over the years that could have used a good edit. How it’s written in your email is how it’ll be listed in the post.
Once again – the window to send in is between right now and Thursday, December 5. Occasional reminders will be posted during that time, so don’t delay and send it straightaway.
Back in January, I’d connected with a repped TV writer who offered to read one of my scripts. I sent it, and promptly forgot about it.
Jump ahead two months. I ask if they’d had a chance to read the script. Turns out they did and not only did they love it, asked if I’d be open to them passing it along to their reps.
Like I’m gonna say no to that?
This writer also mentioned they’d submitted scripts from other friends and acquaintances before, only to be turned down (it’s a BIG firm), so I should be aware my chances of getting through were quite, quite small.
My response – “Totally fine. I appreciate you giving it a try, and will check back in a few months if I don’t hear from you.”
I set a calendar reminder and again promptly forgot about it.
Earlier this week, the reminder pops up. Since I hadn’t heard anything, I assumed it was a pass. No big deal. Still happy to have even gotten that far. There was also the possibility they just hadn’t got to it yet. I get that. I’m not a priority. Just to be sure, I emailed the writer.
The response:
“Sorry for the delayed follow-up. The truth is, it’s not that they aren’t interested; they just haven’t read it. The industry is struggling right now, and agents are swamped trying to find work for their current clients. They simply don’t have the time to consider potential new clients at the moment. Some reps are even being let go or leaving on their own.”
Naturally, a bit disappointing, but also not surprising.
These are uncertain times, chums.
Not only are reps being let go, others are trimming their rosters – although I have seen a few writers getting repped, so there is that silver lining.
Summer movies that seem like slam-dunks are underperforming at the box office.
Studios are drastically cutting back on their output.
More than a few times I’ve heard or read somebody using the phrase “stay alive until ’25!”. In other words, do what you can to hang in there until next year – when things might start to pick up. Emphasis on ‘might’.
Last year’s strikes may have contributed to all of this, but they weren’t the only factors. Things are just different now, and from my perspective seems like everybody is struggling to adapt and nobody has any solid idea how to do that. The harsh reality that some people don’t mind waiting a few months, or even weeks now, for something currently in theaters to switch to streaming is causing a lot of headaches.
Also not helping – studios looking at AI to help cut production costs. That certainly doesn’t bode well, for writers or for anybody behind the scenes.
From somebody in my position – just trying to break in seems even tougher now. The industry is being much more selective. It’s getting tougher to get your script noticed – my experience, anyway. Seeing lots of mentions of them wanting pre-existing IP, so not as much attention being paid to original stuff. Another challenge.
Sometimes it’s like the universe is determined to make any progress for somebody like me as difficult and as insurmountable as possible.
But like a lot of you, I’m stubborn as all get out, and not easily deterred. All I can do is keep trying, keep writing, make connections and establish relationships, and hope for the best.
I like to think things will eventually start to improve in some capacity. No idea when, but it’ll happen. Probably a safe bet to say it’ll be bumpy on the way there.
As this blog enters its 15th(!) year of existence, its primary purpose has been and continues to be about one thing: helping screenwriters.
While my experience, influence, and social media presence may not be as extensive as some, I try to offer whatever help and guidance I can.
If that means giving writers the chance to include their script on a list for anybody and everybody to peruse, share, and spread across the internet, then that works too.
Therefore, I humbly present The Maximum Z Winter ’23 Script Showcase.
An amazing assortment of 71 screenplays and 39 TV scripts covering a vast spectrum of genres and subjects, many of which with notable contest achievements.
And to make it that much more of a valuable resource, each writer’s contact info is included. A script or three sounds like it would be a good read? Drop the author a line and say “Hey, I’d like to read that!”
If your script is among those in this list, take pride in that (You finished a script! Yay you!) and feel free to tell the Internet to your heart’s content. (In fact, it’s highly encouraged.)
Once again, a huge thanks to all the writers who participated. I wish you nothing but amazing results and stupendous returns.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy.
–
FILM
21:00 ZULU TIME
Sadia Carone
Military, Action-Adventure
A mysterious ancient hourglass gets accidentally tipped over at CIA Headquarters — triggering a series of events. A beast in Scotland awakens. A similar hourglass in Cairo starts to glow. Seven chosen people. Who can put the facts together to unlock the ancient secrets?
A robbery sets off a chain reaction of revenge as an aspiring country singer, a broke bartender, and a two strike criminal find their lives thrust together under the neon shadows of music city as they try to make it out alive.
Quarterfinalist – 2019 Nicholl Fellowship
Winner – 2019 California Film Awards
Finalist – 2019 Los Angeles Crime and Horror Film Festival
A former Military Intelligence Soldier is recruited to root out corruption and seeks revenge on the turncoat who killed her men and almost succeeded in killing her.
A hotheaded political journalist is ordered to relax at Niagara Falls and write a puff piece about the monumental dewatering project going on there, but discovers a cold case mystery involving one of the construction workers and her pageant-winning twin sister.
A safe-averse lawyer plans on reuniting with his ex but must first defeat her uncles – two Rabbis – in a court case seeking to find her incompetent as heir to her fathers’ billions because she’s a lesbian! – And Broken Promises!
An Oahu-based marine biologist sets out to determine the cause of unusual shark behavior while the research institute employing her battles for funding, and her relationship partner issues unrealistic demands.
After a big-city schoolgirl, obsessed with her gig as a pirate-radio broadcast DJ, is forced to move to a tiny town just after graduation, she lies to win a legit radio license – claiming to be a Native American – and then must redeem herself with the tribe (and outfox the FCC) to stay on the air.
Jillianne is trapped in a haunting Voodoo curse when she marries into an influential French Quarter family. After her husband succumbs to the family’s twisted beliefs, Jillianne must uncover the truth behind the curse and protect her unborn child from the clutches of Desmond Bennett, a deranged killer determined to prove the curse’s power.
After learning that his ex-girlfriend is nine months pregnant and trapped in her home from a weather disaster, an irresponsible high school senior must act as labor coach for the birth of his child, over video chat.
After losing millions on a risky investment, a group of ex-bankers pull off a daring heist against the Russian mob and must use all their smarts when the Russians seek revenge.
On the moon’s largest colony, one happy-go-lucky stoner must do what no one has done before, protect the aliens he accidentally saved until they can make ‘official’ first contact unless a xenophobic moon command – or far, far worse – stops them.
Desperate to save his job and regain family brownie points after a pink eye “incident”, a neurotic germaphobe ventures to a remote tropical island chasing an interview with a free-spirited pop star during a hurricane, in spite of his phobia for water, wind and girls.
Unable to afford his dream college, a high school graduate lands his first job where he creates friendships with the jaded staff and follows his passion as a comic book artist.
Quarterfinalist – Filmmatic Comedy Screenplay Awards – Season 8
When his girlfriend leaves him for not being “big enough,” an introverted engineer will walk a path of self-discovery through bodybuilding that turns into a self-destructive journey fueled by anabolic steroids, cocaine, and casual sex.
After six years in a French convent high school, a teenage girl with a pathological narcissist disorder in full bloom is released to return home in California determined to having sex with herimagined hero, her father’s best friend, the man she’s always call Uncle Chuck.
When two young up-and-coming filmmakers gain mentorship from their retired hero, they jump at the opportunity for his help completing their student film before the old man’s erratic behavior turns deadly.
A rebellious, resistant and inherently funny hell-on-wheels seventy-five-year-old alcoholic falls down the stairs in her home twice in the last two years. She is rescued by her daughter who intervenes by sending her to detox and rehab with Francine discovers that recovery will take her in an unexpected direction that offers her a chance to reclaim her sobriety and dignity after facing down her demons.
Winner – The Big Apple Film Festival
Finalist – LA International Women in Film Screenplay Awards
Semifinalist – NYC Screenplay Awards
Official Selection – Cannes International Cinema Festival
Official Selection in the Toronto Independent Women in Film Festival
After she is stabbed by an obsessed Stalker, a troubled J-Pop Idol and Her Loyal but suspicious Manager fight a curse: A Demon that kills the Idol’s loved ones whenever she feels love, as punishment for rejecting her Stalker.
Quarterfinalist – 2022/2023 The Script Lab Free Screenplay Competition
When a music obsessed graduate student discovers the members of a hot new boy band are actually bloodthirsty vampires, she teams up with friends, family, and former bandmates to stop the pop group’s evil beat.
An Atheist, desperate to comfort her dying son, tells him she will enter Heaven by his side, which leads to haunting and exorcism intended to make her keep that promise.
This film hasn’t received any awards. However, my short film, Penance, was an Audience Favorite at HollyShorts Film Festival, where the screenplay was also a Finalist.
When Nazis invade the Soviet Union in WW2, young Ukrainian flier Lilya Litvyak joins the Soviet Air Defense and fights not only the pilots of the Luftwaffe but the sexism and bureaucracy of the Soviet system to become the highest scoring female ace in history only to have her records and story buried by Stalin.
Finalist – Nicholl Fellowship
Quarterfinalist – Austin Film Festival
Quarterfinalist – Screencraft True Story & Public Domain Competition
After making a discovery at a vintage record store, a nostalgia-obsessed musician begins an on-air affair with a mysterious radio DJ, only to discover that she’s broadcasting from 1977.
The mysterious sole survivor of a small plane crash ingratiates himself into the family of his rescuer – a kind Nebraska schoolteacher and her troubled teenage son – with sinister results.
A brilliant young software developer puts her career and life in jeopardy when she fights to hold a billionaire tech titan accountable for assaulting her and stealing her world-altering code.
When his new girlfriend is accused of a felony, a former alcoholic lawyer battles against an ambitious prosecutor who is also the woman who left him at the altar and caused his emotional descent.
When Krampus discovers his former boss and toxic-bro, Santa, has enspelled the entire North Pole with dark magic, he must get over his hundred-year-heartache and return to rescue his old flame, Mrs. Claus.
A lonely neuroscientist transfers her elderly cat’s consciousness into the mind of one of her coma patients. But when the cat gets his tongue, the fur starts to fly and she has a difficult decision to make.
When a precocious 7-year-old girl, adopted by her late mother’s twin sister, receives a mysterious terrier for her birthday, they instantly bond and are joined by unseen forces to survive a deadly plot to destroy her and her family.
Senior year, a newly-questioning Muslim and a love-lorn agnostic Jew begin a FWB relationship, for their first sexual experience, but when they begin to fall in love, they must figure out if they’re truly right for each other.
When her scorned suitor shows up with an army of 300 men and abducts her into the heart of the Viking world, a semi-legendary princess struggles for vengeance while envisioning a new nation of laws that would prevent this from ever happening again.
A group of teens and their transformer spaceship form a formidable team, guided by a veteran they’re able to face the federation tyrannical Admiral and his army of cyborgs and machines.
America’s first chrononaut sets off on an exploratory mission to travel back in time. But when he returns to the present, he finds that this initial breach of space/time has set off a chain reaction that’s sent the world into chaos.
Five years after surviving a madman’s murder spree, a real-life “final girl” finds herself falling for the DP of a documentary crew dedicated to exposing her darkest secrets.
When a successful architect’s search for his husband’s misplaced wedding ring is interrupted by home invaders, his life and all he knows to be true are upended until he starts to question his identity.
An emotionally-guarded young widower struggles to find a way to connect with his eight-year-old son who – believing he’s responsible for his mother’s death – refuses to leave the house unless he’s wearing the caterpillar costume she had made him for Halloween.
Seven years after the disappearance of his son, a grieving father partners with the mother of another missing youth to hunt down those responsible—a sadistic backwoods cult operating under the radar of local police.
Semifinalist – 2023 Austin Film Festival
Recommend – 2023 Roadmap Writers Accelerator Program
Top 10 Finalist – Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Awards Season 7
Burnt out and disillusioned with Hollywood, a fragile and struggling actor finds a lifeline when he’s thrust into the heart of an epic guerrilla film shoot led by an infamous director.
After a bus crash, a teenage dancer caught between life and death must grapple with the father who abandoned him, his own deepest regrets, and the prospect of saying goodbye to his love – or joining her forever in the afterlife.
Winner – Fantasy Category – 2020 Script Summit
Semifinalist – Filmmatic – Inroads Fellowship Season 6
Quarterfinalist – 2020 CineStory Feature Retreat and Fellowship Competition
Quarterfinalist – 2021 Industrial Scripts – The TITAN Awards
A troubled biker and a pistol packing ex-nun rescue an abused woman and play a deadly game of hide and seek when her powerful preacher husband calls in a hitman to save his political career by burying the family sins.
A Nendoroid encounters a human survivor in a post-apocalyptic world and forms a friendship. However, their friendship gets tested when they face off against a killer cyborg. It’s Wall-E meets The Terminator.
A genetically gifted teen is forced to go on the lam when an egocentric scientist and his dying henchman, hunt him down to harvest his advanced DNA as a cure.
Invention comes with with both a spark of genius and a moment of deceit. This is the story of Philo Farnsworth, the boy genius who figured out the electronics of television at the age of 14. And the corporation that erased him from history.
In a world where state-sponsored death penalties are banned, a private execution specialist faces a moral dilemma when a family’s conflicting views on capital punishment challenge her mission.
Finalist – Fall 2023 WeScreenplay Diverse Voices Lab
Finalist – Los Angeles International Screenplay Awards -Diversity Initiative III
Semifinalist – 2022-2023 Finish Line Script Competition
When a gallery owner with a thieving side hustle is hired to steal a priceless Mummy and take down a shady museum director, she enlists the help of an eclectic team with their own agendas and must outsmart her Interpol boyfriend.
While escaping a tyrannical wizard, a novice witch from a magical dimension ends up stranded without her powers in the least magical place of all – New Jersey.
3rd Place – Family/Teen/Animation – 2023 StoryPros
Christopher D’andre Williams & Nicole Simone Backus
Teen Horror
In a tale of supernatural reckoning, ‘Voodoomon’ follows a bullied teen’s return from death, her soul infused with voodoo might. As she seeks retribution, her mother faces a heart-wrenching choice: kill her own daughter to save the world.
Hired by a ruthless CIA asset to hunt down North Korean agents operating in Los Angeles, a burnt-out spy living off the grid discovers his target… is himself.
Comedy about a gay male couple and their straight best friends who plan a double wedding with unexpected romantic, financial and familial complications –and the world’s most take-charge wedding planner (based on my produced L.A. stage play).
When a gutsy third grader becomes the first girl to wrestle on a boys’ team under federal law, she must fight injury and animosity on her way to the State Championship.
Claustrophobic and confined to an underwater grave for stealing billions in Bitcoin from the Russian mob, a Los Angeles retail store manager has just 60 minutes to prove his innocence and save his family.
Semifinalist – 2023 StoryPros
Quarterfinalist – 2023 PAGE Awards
Recommend – Dec 2023 Barb Doyon/Extreme Screenwriting
After a big snow storm hits, a jaded New York businessman and renown holiday grump finds himself trapped in a Christmas-obsessed small town just as their famously cheesy holiday festival is starting.
Isolated for six months on a seafood processing vessel in the wild Bering Sea, a young man struggles with sanity when the love of his life disappears from the ship without a trace.
Pregnant from a sexual assault, the pro-life granddaughter of a conservative Supreme Court justice attempts to escape her forced-birth state to obtain an abortion, but gets apprehended by a vigilante group headed by her brother and incarcerated at a “Life Mall” where she must remain until she gives birth.
After being robbed of their phones and money on their first date, two middle-aged strangers must work together to get home on one crazy, awful night in Los Angeles.
A fragile woman with an unhealthy reliance on her helicopter parents gets a chance at growth and redemption when both she and her fed-up therapist are held hostage in a dysfunctional bank robbery. (No Hard Feelings meets Bandits)
The sociopathic Dr. Victoria Frankenstein brings Mary to life, and forces her to kill people for scientific experimentation, but as Mary evolves into an ethical person, she must find a way to sabotage her creator’s evil agenda.
Semifinalist – 2021 Screencraft Fellowship
Finalist – Fall 2021 Big Apple Film Festival
Semifinalist – Filmmatic Drama Screenplay Awards Season 7
At a clinic where troubling emotions can be cleansed, a series of tormented clients discover that the seemingly utopian procedure is an expressway to destruction.
Quarterfinalist – 2023 Filmmatic TV Pilot Awards
Quarterfinalist – 2023 Page Turner
Honourable Mention – 2023 Finish Line Script Competition
Exceptional Achievement – 2023 Multi Dimension IFF
After a female football prodigy saves a failing collegiate program, she defies the odds and becomes the first woman head coach in college football history, until she discovers an underground sports-betting plot against the team and threatens to expose it to the world, even if it means destroying her own legacy.
Best Drama – Script Summit
Best Screenplay/Excellence in Screenwriting – Twin Falls Film Festival
Best Sports Screenplay – Las Vegas International Screenplay Contest
Based on the 2004 case of Jack Irwin, a reclusive veteran is taken advantage of by two women and disappears. Without the determination of his only friend, Sandy Bailey, his case would have vanished like him, instead, it uncovered a twisted case of elder abuse and a horrifying murder in the mountains of Southern California.
Semifinalist – 2023 Austin Film Festival
Quarterfinalist – 2023 Creative Screenwriting Pilot Competition
Three unusual kids with secret mind-bending abilities struggle to contain the detrimental side effects that their existence causes society. But when their medical records are leaked, the cure they so desperately need is at stake.
Semifinalist – 2021 ScreenCraft TV Pilot Script Competition
Quarterfinalist – 2022 Atlanta Film Festival Screenplay Competition
After a failed writer accepts a temp job on the City’s Equity Team he is quickly pulled into the absurd labyrinth of municipal government and must find his way out.
A goofy and not-always-honest attorney’s unique–and illegal–plan to have an old friend carry his baby hits a literal bump in the road when a pregnant ex appears.
Top 50 Pilot – 2023 Roadmap Jumpstart
Second Rounder – 2023 Austin Film Festival
Quarterfinalist – The Script Lab Free Screenplay Competition
Semifinalist – 2022 Omaha Film Festival Screenplay Competition
Lala and Jon – a biracial couple – are caught in the middle of an American race war. With battle raging, and a bounty on their heads, where will they run? Where will they hide?
An unhealthy accountant that’s inherited a gym from his recently deceased dad works to keep things afloat as he deals with the annoyance of his extremely fit staff and manages a health scare after collapsing while filling in as a yoga class instructor.
A devilishly-charming former Scotland Yard Inspector tries to redeem his fall from grace & dark past by working as a private detective in a quirky Cotswolds village in 1950’s England, surrounded by equally-quirky & eccentric inhabitants with secrets of their own.
Semifinalist – 2022 Santa Barbara International Screenplay Awards
Quarterfinalist – 2022 Filmmatic Drama Screenplay Awards
Quarterfinalist – 2023 ISA’s Table Read My Screenplay
After 28-year-old James McKinnon wakes up in a field as a walking corpse, he enlists his high school best friend-turned-mortician and a transplanted police officer to help him answer the question of what is happening in their small, Midwest town.
Semifinalist – Creative World Awards
Quarterfinalist – Stage 32 Happy Writers TV Contest
When a kid’s collection goes viral overnight, she must learn to navigate the cut-throat fashion world with only her working-class mom’s help and a talking magazine cut-out of her favorite supermodel.
Seeking adventure in a divided fantasy society, a tenacious teenage girl and her friends unknowingly repeat history when they take on the responsibility of saving their world from a corrupt Queen.
A high school football star recovering from a brain injury must stop his friends and family from being infected with a sentient slime mold that threatens to turn everyone in the remote Minnesota town of Kitteritch into a single, murderous hive mind. TOMMYKNOCKERS x TWIN PEAKS
Eight diverse career struggle talented artists with personal and Mental Health issues partner up to develop a TV series to level up their troubled careers.
A homeless detective – who can only solve crimes when drunk – struggles with sobriety. Mick has 8 days to solve a murder, while living in his car. But each clue pulls a thread of mystery that could unravel the town, and cost him more than a job.
In the midst of a forbidden affair with her commanding officer, a sharp-witted transgender combat medic embarks on a journey to be true to herself, challenging old-school military rules amid internal conflicts and the complexities of love, identity, and self-acceptance.
N.E.S.S. (Nightmare and Extraction Storage Solutions)
Simon Laurence Doyle
Comedy/Sci-Fi
A government agent trained to infiltrate and extract rich clients’ nightmares must balance his debt to the mob, a suspiciously keen new intern and some rather stabby dreams of his own. Easy peasy.
Hakeem, a drug dealer and Voodooist from New Orleans, is the first spiritual son of the Voodoo deity, Obba Nani. Despite his reoccurring psychosis, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery and love, guided by his poetry and Obba Nani’s mystical teachings that bestow upon him supernatural powers.
After his estranged son steals a new tech innovation with destructive capabilities, a retired mercenary must track him down before a war is waged between a multitude of corrupted corporations.
The true story of the world’s most infamous terrorist and how he teams up with his bumbling Jihadi cohorts to evade U.S. forces and convince superstar pop singer Whitney Houston that they are each other’s soulmates.
After leaving her cheating, well-to-do husband, an ex-graphic designer opens an edgy greeting card design studio and store. When her ex opens a competing card studio she must ramp-up her edgy and take her studio Over The Edge!
Semifinalist – 2023 The Script Lab’s TSL Free Screenplay Contest
When a huge first round upset busts 99% of America’s March Madness brackets, the uptight and introvert owner of the last possible perfect set of selections is forced to navigate overnight fame, a desperate rookie reporter, and the Las Vegas underbelly, when pick after pick goes his way.
Quarterfinalist – Filmmatic Comedy Screenplay Awards – Season 8
A former JAG attorney starts a new life as a private sector lawyer and gets caught up in a class action lawsuit against a crooked pharmaceutical company.
A bold, dark comedy that follows our main character Matthew, who’s stuck in a temp job at a call center, living with his ex-girlfriend and battling an extraordinarily mediocre existence. He eventually finds solace and friendship in the one place he never thought to look: the people who also inhabit the unpredictable world of his temp agency.
A young privileged African-American baseball scout puts his job on the line when he vouches for an undiscovered pitching phenom who’s trapped in the drug game.
A happy-go-lucky private investigator finds himself stuck between a past he’s been running from, and the hope of what the present brings. But his curious nature leads to a revelation of supernatural proportions.
A crew of desperate college journalists investigate a peaceful cult in their area. However, the more they uncover about this community, the less peaceful they seem.
The son of a famed Draconian Knight survives years of imprisonment and torture with an iron will and singular purpose – to escape his oppression and exact revenge upon those who murdered his family… giving birth to a terror that had endured over five centuries.
When the Princess of the Zombies is outed as a vegetarian she runs away from home, finding a portal into the monster multiverse and proof that her Father, the missing King, is still un-alive.
A young man crashes into his own past when he wishes for a second shot at a high school romance. A time-travelling LGBTQ+ love story, told against a backdrop of slightly askew seaside attractions, a chilling serial killer and a gaggle of elderly genies.
Finalist – 2022 Screenwriters Network TV Pilot Competition
Semifinalist – 2021 The Script Lab Screenplay Competition
A Westernized East Indian teen defies and denounces his Muslim upbringing and culture much to the chagrin of his traditional parents, who’s arranged marriage for him is in conflict with the white girl he plans on marrying.
Three siblings struggling to overcome a heinous family secret become the prime suspects in the death of a renowned entrepreneur and wrestle with the consequences of grief, guilt and growth.
Had a great Zoom chat the other day with a newer writer. They’d found me on social media and liked what I’ve had to say about screenwriting and working on establishing a career at it. Would I be open to imparting some of what I’ve learned and any other advice I might have that could potentially help point them in the right direction?
Even though I admitted to still being one of those trying to “break in”, so my two cents of guidance was probably worth about that much anyway, how could I say no?
We talked about wide variety of topics, mostly involving screenwriting, including our respective backgrounds, experience, short- and long-term goals. They also asked for potential suggestions as to how they could go about achieving those goals.
I told them what I’ve said to many writers before, and it still rings true.
Everybody’s path to success (however you gauge it) is going to be unique to them and them alone. What works for me will probably be totally different than what works for you. If you know what your goals are, then it’s up to you to figure out what it will take for you to get there.
You need to create your own doorway, because nobody’s going to do it for you.
Use everything at your disposal. You might think you don’t have anything to work with at first, but you’d be surprised how effective even the littlest thing can be. It’s all about perspective and determination.
For example, the writer had worked on some short films in various capacities. They could use those to showcase their skills, as well as adding the other filmmakers and crew into their network. You never know who knows of another gig or has heard of a project that needs someone who can do the things you do.
If that’s what it takes for you to find that way in, that’s what you do.
The writer said nobody had put it that way before, which really helped them as they start to figure out their approach and possible strategies. They appreciated the advice, and the honesty.
This sort of stuff might seem pretty basic to those of us who’ve been at it for a long time (such as yours truly), but there will always be those just starting to dip their toes into these turbulent waters. I didn’t really have anybody like that when I was starting out, so why not offer up a helping hand in some capacity?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a doorway to finish creating, followed by kicking it wide open.
Maximum Z 