FinishLineScriptComp

I could not be more thrilled to have HBO Max & Deadline reveal this news. 2022 winner Matt Thomas’ pilot Debbie is on its way to the small screen, packaged by Finish Line. Huge Congrats to Matt. We’re all very excited. Enter the right competition, you just might get a tv show made.

A few days of dealing with administrative work but now we at Finish Line would like to thank everyone who entered and/or received notes from us this season. We have a lot of reading to do, which is quite exciting. We're also open for notes, pitch development & one-on-one mentorship/Zoom calls through @FilmFreeway & our website. To copy the airlines, we know you have many options for your competition and script notes needs and not one submission is taken for granted. Keep writing.

Visited the @AcademyMuseum this weekend. If you’re in LA- go! Here’s what they have to say about screenwriters:

I was on a Zoom call with a writer the other day and we were talking about their main characters, whom I felt were underdeveloped. They resisted. I asked them to define "Character A" and there was silence. They couldn't put "A" into words. He was just the guy who was doing "x, y, & z." Putting characters in situations and letting the action go isn't creating a character. Creating a character starts before the action, before the story and develops the action.

Had lunch with a VP at a studio yesterday. They are looking for disaster shows. Tentpole. High concept. This is true of other studios as well. This and erotic thrillers are hot.

More experienced writers are generally 'better' at hearing what's not working in their script. It's not that they’re not less confident, they’re just less defensive. Regardless of your experience, you know what you meant in that scene, with that character, in that dialogue. A script consultant only gets the pages and has probably seen whatever the problems are hundreds of times. More importantly, they want your script to be better than it currently is. That’s the whole job. A note is not a verdict on you. It’s a report from the consultant who will tell you the truth before agents, producers, etc. will. You won't get the feedback from them, they'll just stop reading, and you never find out why. None of this means consultants are always right. Sometimes a suggestion misses what you were going for and a good writer is allowed to say so. The skill is in telling the difference between “this note is wrong” and “this note stings.”

Keep your character in action. Development in action can help prevent too much exposition. A good test: if you could film the scene with the sound off and still understand what’s happening emotionally, you’ve got characters in meaningful action.

We make plans. We outline.
We name characters.
We choose titles.
We imagine endings. We decide what something is going to mean before we have even had the opportunity to discover what it might mean. And then we begin creating. Sometimes, the plan works, sometimes, it doesn’t. Sometimes a character we thought would be insignificant becomes the most interesting person in the story. Sometimes an ending that seemed perfect suddenly feels completely wrong. Sometimes a story we thought would be dark becomes hopeful or something we thought would be simple becomes much more complicated. And sometimes we look at the thing we are creating and realize: I don’t want to make this anymore. Or perhaps more accurately: I don’t want to make it this way anymore. That sounds really exciting. Enjoy your writing.

Welcome to November.

Great news for our 1st runner-up, Bobby Ellroy and his TV pilot, THE OATH. We have attached show runners, fresh off a Netflix show and who have had shows on CBS and ABC prior. Now, we can get to work, prepping this pilot for early 2027 pitches. All of last season's have now gotten repped/have producers attached to their material. Feeling good.

“Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you’re the least important person in the room — until you change that with results.” ― Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy

“If no one sees your art, it is still a revolution. You freed yourself did you not?" - Jaiya John

Every writer has heard of the note "show, don't tell". There is, of course, room and purpose for both in storytelling. Telling handles pace. If every single detail in a piece were shown rather than told, the writing would collapse under its own weight, be exhausting to read with no sense of which moments actually mattered. Everything would have received the same dramatic, scene-level treatment. Showing handles weight. The moments that are supposed to matter, the emotional turn, the decision, the loss, those are where showing earns its keep. Those are the moments where you want the reader doing the work of arriving at the feeling themselves, rather than simply being informed of it. Latecomer Submissions open.

I want to thank all the writers who have entered Finish Line year after year. Now in our 11th season, it's a pleasure to see how so many of you have learned, changed and grown in your writing. When you're writing the right script, seeing the improvement is really beautiful.

Write to free yourself Write to express yourself Write to explore yourself Write to challenge yourself Write to challenge the oppressive systems Write to grieve Write to document Write to leave your mark Write because you can Write because it is your right Write because it is art Just write.

Ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances.

It's almost irrelevant if I am interested in the subject matter of script you are writing. It does matter if I care about the theme and the character development. If I can relate in some way to your characters and what they're suffering through and learning, you're on the path to doing good job, regardless of other issues with the script.