As April comes to a close, thousands of writers who participated in 2008 Script Frenzy are rejoicing: They completed a screenplay in a month.
Script Frenzy encourages writers from all over the world to complete a 100-page script, be it a screenplay, stageplay, teleplay, short film, comic book or graphic novel script, or adaptation of a novel. The idea is to work through the challenge, and get to fade out. This year in the month of April, 7,897 writers completed a collective page count of nearly 130,000 pages. That’s a lot of characters, scenes, dialogue, and plot.
The Office of Letters and Light
Script Frenzy is produced by The Office of Letters and Light, which organizes events where children and adults find the inspiration, encouragement, and structure they need to achieve their creative potential. Their programs are all web-enabled, and are designed to foster self-expression and community-building. Since Script Frenzy is part of a donation-funded nonprofit, there’s no fee to participate. Just a lot of support, encouragement, and creativity.
The Script Frenzy site offers valuable tools for writers to help them on their path, every step of the way.
How-To Guides go beyond just how to write a screenplay, stageplay, or teleplay. Worksheets and questionnaires were made available for character development, creating conflict, and outlining plot, as well as crafting scenes and settings. Cameos, advice from the experts, went up on the site regularly throughout the month. Even if you missed the deadline, this information is accessible all year round.
Online forums and local group write-ins were also part of the plan. These forums were not only informative, but also the basis for the online equivalent of a cheering section.
Now that this year's “competition” has come to an end, there will be a page dedicated to “What Next?” coming in the next several days. In the meantime, there are plenty of resources on the forums for editing, marketing, contests, and more.
It’s not a matter of winner or losing—it’s the number of pages produced that counts! Even those who fall short of the word-count goal of Script Frenzy get props for doing their best. Plus, there’s always next year.
National Novel Writing Month
Can’t wait that long? National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is in November! That event challengesparticipants to write a 50,000-word novel, from scratch. Last year, more than 100,000 people took part in National Novel Writing Month. The Office of Letters and Light also produces a Young Writers Program every November. The youth version offers a similar writing adventure for young authors, and provides teachers, youth librarians, and homeschooling parents with resources and curriculum to help get kids and teens excited about writing.
For more information, go to www.scriptfrezy.org or www.nanowrimo.org.
