The Question, and semi-big news

First, my semi-big news: my one-hour pilot screenplay, The Prince: Cassus Belli, has made it to the semifinal round of the 2017 Final Draft Big Break competition.  I'm tremendously excited about this. If it makes it to the quarterfinals I may just die. But my corpse will have a big smile on its face.

The thought of maybe winning this thing, or at least being able to put "semifinalist in the 2017 Big Break competition" on any cover letter I send to someone with the script, has me thinking about something every screenwriter needs to think about: The Question.

What is The Question?

Imagine this: you're in a meeting with a producer. Someone big time who can get your movie made. She's impressed with your script but this is at a really early stage, and there are an awful lot of hoops left to jump through. The meeting's almost over when she asks:

"So, what else you got?"

At this point you need to have as many completed scripts in your pocket as possible. And have treatments handy for any that you haven't completed yet. And be ready to talk about them. Let this producer know that you are a serious writer. Not somebody who got lucky and came up with an interesting script once. She wants to know if you can do it over and over again.

That's somebody she'd want to do business with.

So, I've done a pretty significant rewrite of The Prince script, and I'm banging away on another pilot script right now. I've got a script for a horror feature that I thought turned out pretty well, and a treatment for a mystery that I'm pretty happy with, too. I'm going to be writing some more treatments over the next few weeks, too, just to have them handy.

I've also had an idea for a short film that's been driving me crazy--looks like I'll have to write that one just to get it out of my system. It should be interesting, though, and might actually be something I can get made.

So, when I get The Question, I should be able to give the person who asked it a full menu of choices. You want horror? Science fiction? A whodunit? Drama? Even comedy, if that's what you're looking for--I'm about to be in a position to write one I've been mulling over for years, looks like.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, that I make it to the next round. And always be ready with an answer to The Question. You never know . . .