After these authors turned their novella into a screenplay, they worked hard to improve it—and kept going until they won an award.

by Breakfield and Burkey

Woo-hoo! Permit us to be jazzed to have received the Page Turner Screenplay Finalist award (so far) for our Out of Poland screenplay submission. We know we’re lucky dogs. However, we’d like to explain how much effort and rejection we received before this fantastic recognition.

We are storytellers first and foremost. We didn’t start with a screenplay but with a novella of 40,000 words. Following the detailed process of publishing this historical fiction in June of 2021, we hit on the idea of trying our hand at making it into a screenplay. As with most publishing endeavors today, there is no shortage of experts with oodles of advice for a fee and publications you can draw on for your education. There were many recommendations, and “Here’s how I did it” anecdotes to draw from. The only thing they universally agreed upon was that nobody does it right the first time.

It’s disheartening, right? No matter where we went for advice, the same message kept coming through: write it, rewrite it, and then rewrite it again. After we had done this so many times, we asked a screenplay writer to go through and grade it. His answer? Fix this mess. We thought we had.

After rewriting our screenplay so many times, we asked someone to grade it. His answer? Fix this mess. We thought we had.

It took two more years of modifications and revisions using a software package called Final Draft to blend in the subtleties learned by formally trained screenplay writers which we had to discover through trial and error. If you think “show, don’t tell” is the mantra in writing fiction, wait until you tackle screenplay writing. After twenty rewrites, we felt it was ready for a film festival competition. We entered it into the closest one within our budget, the Austin Film Festival screenplay competition. We danced on the clouds as our egos soared when we made the first-round cut of the top 20% out of 11,000 submissions in the historical fiction category. This entitled us to buy a slot to pitch our submission directly to a panel of film producers, agents, and screenwriters.

Pitching a screenplay only has a single focus: telling a compelling teaser in ninety seconds without revealing the entire story. You’ve failed if you don’t hear the coveted “Tell us more.” Our pitch was spot on, exactly ninety seconds long, but only one of the judges wanted to hear more. The bartender at the hotel that night knew exactly how depressed we were. But the good news was the panel sent us feedback that we used to revise our property one more time. Sigh.

Armed with our latest revised screenplay, feeling like parents waiting for their child to qualify for their diploma, you guessed it: we submitted it again, to Page Turner. You can see the Finalist designation we earned thus far in our four-year journey. The lesson? Ask for feedback from experts. Keep revising where it makes sense. If you believe in your property, continue to submit it to other reputable contests. Don’t give up. We didn’t.

Charles Breakfield is a technology expert in security, networking, voice, and anything digital. He enjoys writing, studying World War II history, travel, and cultural exchanges. Charles is a fan of wine tastings, winemaking, Harley riding, cooking extravaganzas, and woodworking.

Rox Burkey is a technology professional who excels at optimizing technology and business investments. She works with customers all over the world focusing on optimized customer experiences. Rox writes white papers and documentation, but found she has a marked preference for writing fiction.

Together, these Texas authors create award-winning stories that resonate with males and females, as well as young and experienced adults. They bring a fresh new view to technology possibilities through their exciting stories.

You can connect with them on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Learn more about the Enigma Series at their website.