My name is Matt and I’ve lost almost every single screenwriting contest I’ve ever entered.
That said, some of these contests, like ScreenCraft, have proven a great help in the important next steps I am taking in breaking into the industry, but not in the ways I think people may expect when they begin to submit their scripts and hope for placements and wins. There’s a wide range of podcasts, articles, and blogs about how contests do or don’t help aspiring writers become professional.
Most of them are pretty clear that the majority of placements in contests often don’t matter that much to reps and producers, and those few contests that do often sometimes move the needle all that much. It leaves aspiring writers in a paradoxical rock and a hard place in that one of the major avenues to break in is through contests, but winning or placing in said contests may not open the doors you were hoping for.
Contests can help with all that but they are not a golden ticket that means all the hard work and toil is over as you grind through the next draft or next project. That’s never really going to stop if you commit to working on stories.
So the podcasts and articles and blogs get a lot of that right about what contests can or can’t do. But one conversation that hasn’t been happening is how contests, especially those like ScreenCraft that seek to foster community and put you into contact with industry professionals and mentors, can be of great help and support. Especially if you are usually an also-ran like me.
Folks often see contests as a way to make their professional journey easier, and I wonder if it is more impactful and sustainable for us to see how contests can make us better professionals. I hoped something like that would happen when I hit submit on those first contests.
Maybe there was a longing for some relief from persisting through the weight of my own bad writing as I tried to get better, as my taste and hope as a storyteller outpaced my ability. Now, I am seeing how my experiences entering contests and losing them have helped me become a better writer and what tangible steps and personal agency I can take in these situations.
Here are some hot takes on how to approach screenwriting contests and how to maximize your learning when you are doing as much losing as I have.
Read More: The Screenwriter’s Ultimate Guide To Handling Rejection
Just Say No To Chasing Validation
Sorry for a geek-out moment for a second: my background is in animal ecology before I started in theater and now screenwriting. But this idea of validity is an important thing in the scientific method and for a long time, thinkers (like writers) have chased after the one, true answer or singular, always right way to do something.
But as we’ve learned more and more about how the world works (and even more how much we don’t understand), chasing this steadfast and never-changing external validity becomes not only less plausible scientifically, but increasingly unhelpful for those seeking answers.
Matt Foss
More and more, when navigating complex questions, it’s less important scientifically to prove how your answer is more right or less wrong based on the answers of the folks external to the process and more vital to make sure the internal steps have a rigor that allows them to be complete and trustworthy.
Now what does science have to do with screenwriting is a great question but hopefully it makes sense in a moment.
Chasing accolades and tying your worth or validation to external sources like placing in contests can empty both yourself and your bank account really quickly, and neither is ever really going to get filled back up by that very thing you are chasing.
In some ways, I’ve tried to discontinue the very phrase “looking for validation” from my thinking not because it’s wrong or problematic on the whole, but because I’ve found it increasingly less helpful to what is my true priority: improving my craft and skill as a storyteller.
By leaning into that interior focus of improving my craft, where I actually have authentic agency, rather than chasing some external proclamation of industry gatekeepers—where I have little to no agency whatsoever—I can make what I hope is more effective and sustainable choices with my limited time and money when it comes to how to employ contests as a strategy for breaking in.
Read More: How Do Screenwriters Know When To Embrace or Reject Notes and Feedback?
Craft and Community > Accolades
Every week there’s another podcast episode or internet article on the do’s and don’ts of how to get a rep. It’s the same thing at most roundtables—be it some of the great online ones out there or at the awesome Austin Film Festival opportunities, there’s a chorus of the same question repeated over and over: “How do I get representation?”
Time and time again you hear similar (if not the exact same) answers on those podcasts or articles or around those tables. One of those repeated answers is that your placement in the majority of contests doesn’t really matter to managers, agents, or producers and that even in the few contests that might ping their curiosity what is going to matter is what is on the page.
So rather than get cynical or jaded about the process and prospects of contests-which is easy to do, seek out the opportunities that can put you into craft and capacity-building experiences or use the contests to create your own.
For example, the ScreenCraft Zooms are amazing and the staff is consistent in how they champion their writers. That said, they’re as crazy busy as all of us and are often moving on to the next contest or next group while you are sitting and waiting for the doors to open from that placement you hoped would be the big break you needed.
Nobody’s coming to do it for you and despite the generosity and kindness you find at the end of the line of many contests, it’s less of a door opening and more of a tool to build your door with.
The thing is if you write that contest team in a polite and professional manner with specific questions, even with as busy as they are, you often hear back, usually pretty quickly, with some great help, insight, or information. And even more so, use the script request function on Coverfly to read those scripts you keep seeing pop up on those lists.
PRO-TIP: those emails you get allow you to continue the conversation with the writer directly so don’t sleep on writing a specific and kind “cover letter” and be sure to actually read the dang thing and follow up.
Screenwriter Tom Schrack (one of the best Screenwriter Twitter follows and generous and all-around best guys) is an extraordinary model of building community, reading, learning, and supporting in this way.
People call it horizontal networking, but there’s often a mercenary or transactional feel to that which feels antithetical to the empathetic and generous nature of most of the emerging screenwriting community, and reaching out in that way can go a long way to not only build your craft but find your people to collaborate and support in your next steps.
Read More: 7 Tips and Tricks To Get the Most Out of Networking Events
Relationships > Rankings
One of the first contests I applied to was the ScreenCraft Virtual Pitch program not because I had a real sense of how to pitch, but because of the opportunity to talk and learn face-to-face with working professionals in the field.
That quickly became a priority when vetting what contests to enter and what I could afford on my teacher salary: focusing on opportunities for one-on-one interactions and those contests where relationships and mentorship were integral to the process and/or the potential prize. What I failed to anticipate was that the relationships I would form with other folks in the contests would go on to be some of the most important and prove to provide the most learning, impact, and development.
As I mentioned above, it takes a little work and using the contact lists or things like Coverfly to reach out, but it’s categorically worth it. They are the ones navigating the same difficulties and pitfalls and creative hopes and struggles you are, and being in a relationship and community with them quickly became one of the primary benefits of entering a contest like ScreenCraft.
Brian Koukol (ScreenCraft’s 2023 TV Pilot Winner for his script Crips) has become not only one of my closest friends but a writer I admire and learn from the most. He wins a lot (and should) and is a ferociously funny and authentic writer who I just cold-queried through Coverfly after seeing his name show up in finalist list after finalist list. He gives precise, insightful notes and I learn so much from reading his prolific output of great stories. We’re in a writing group together and meet once a week to work on projects together.
Similarly, I met screenwriter/producer John Trefry (co-writer of 2022’s ScreenCraft Feature winner, Vapor) during one of ScreenCraft’s community-building Zoom gatherings for finalists. John’s insight and integrity have been an immeasurable help as my work and career are taking new steps forward.
Donnita Shaw, who tirelessly organizes these community gatherings and craft-building experiences for those entering ScreenCraft contests has been a persistent encourager and champion at every step of the journey-including and especially the embarrassing or not-so-successful ones.
Likewise, Tom Dever from Coverfly has been an incredible help and champion of writers not only for my career but also in helping me gain access to materials and resources for the screenwriting class I teach for incarcerated students at Toledo Correctional Institution.
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The thing that may matter more than anything else in regards to contests is not how you do, but what you do with them. Contests like ScreenCraft that foster mentorship relationships and community are great, and even better when you take full advantage of them by connecting with your peer screenwriters involved.
Read More: How This ScreenCraft Winner Launched a Grassroots Oscar Fyc Campaign
Matt Foss is an Autistic writer who writes original comedies and adapts a wide range of IP for stage and screen. He grew up on a cotton farm in West Texas, worked as a wildlife biologist in Montana before transitioning to working as a professional actor and playwright in Chicago and trained and performed at Russia’s famous Moscow Art Theatre. He has an MFA and PhD in theatre. In 2023, the Austin Film Festival and Movie Maker Magazine named him on of the Top 25 Screenwriters to Watch and on Coverfly’s Best Unrepresented Writers List. His comedy feature, LONE WOLVES, directed by Ryan Cunningham (INSIDE AMY SCHUMER, BROAD CITY, SEARCH PARTY) will premiere in 2024. He is a member of the WGA-East and a proud graduate of SPACE CAMP at the U.S. Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He was twelve and it was amazing.
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