THE STORY VAULT BLOG

THE LEGACY OF THE NICHOLL FELLOWSHIPS

Like so many writers I used to dream of winning a Nicholl Fellowship. I saw it as the key to my dreams. But there was never any chance whatsoever. I don't write the prestige dramas that the Nicholl overwhelmingly favours. And honestly, I'm glad.

There has been some very successful writers who have come out of the Nicholl programme. Susannah Grant, Ehren Kruger, Destin Daniel Cretton and Terri Edda Miller and Andrew Marlowe, most notably. Still, it's a sparse list given that 191 Fellowships had been awarded up to 2024.

Only about two dozen Nicholl winning scripts have been produced. The most successful at the box office:

Finding Forester $80m

Arlington Road $41m

Akeelah and the Bee $19m

Dead for a Dollar $>1m

The Nicholl Fellowships rewards prestige dramas that the industry doesn't want to make and that audiences don't want to see.

Frankly, I don't see the point of the whole exercise. Why wade through 5,000 to 7,000 screenplays to select projects with almost no chance (not even the usual long Hollywood odds) of getting made and attracting a sizable audience? It seems the Academy may have reached the same conclusion before recently changing the submission rules to dramatically reduce the number of entries.

I often wonder how many excellent genre scripts never made it past the first round of judging...or never advanced beyond the quarter-finals. I also wonder how many of these ended up being produced and turned a profit at the box office.

I understand why few screenwriting contests carry any weight in the industry. The majority, like the Nicholl Fellowships, reward prestige drama or small, personal stories that are not relatable for the majority of people. Most competitions have a solid bias against screenplays that bend or blend genres or break convention. Yet these types of projects are very often exactly what audiences want to see. Audiences want novelty, they want something different. Beetlejuice 2 made $450m. Deadpool made $782m. Joker made $1b. Men In Black made $589m. Ghostbusters made $295m. (None of these are adjusted for inflation.)

Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, the Coen Brothers, Sam Raimi, and Edgar Wright have all become very successful by breaking convention and producing material with a strong, distinct voice.

So why do screenwriting competition rarely reward scripts that possess these qualities?

I have a theory. (I almost always have a theory.)

The competitions (at least the early rounds) are judged mainly by writers. It makes sense. You wouldn't want to have someone who knows nothing about screenwriting and screenplays deciding what does or does not advance. But this brings with it a problem. Writers do not represent the typical movie-goer any more than movie critics do. And the most common genres that writers pursue are prestige drama and small, personal stories. it's only natural that they will have an affinity for the type of material that they themselves write. (I realize that "they themselves" is not grammatically correct - but it's good for emphasis.)

My wish for a competition is one that selects the most commercially promising projects and then applies a standard of quality to determine which projects have a fighting chance of being produced. Because even if those projects aren't produced, the contest will create a database of "producible writers." Writers with skill who pen commercial material. That would be far more beneficial to the industry than a hundred Nicholl Fellows.

Here are loglines from a list of winning and runner-up screenplays across three different contests:

A tormented Syrian refugee finds new purpose caring for a neglected child, but when she is abducted, he is forced to confront his violent past to save her.

When an autistic boy is kidnapped during a carjacking, his parents remotely track him using a dashcam feed—while a mysterious woman manipulates the situation toward a darker agenda.

After the premature birth of their son, a young couple struggles to stay emotionally connected as their family is transformed by a monstrous fate.

Two gifted violinists at an elite conservatory see their friendship turn toxic after a high-stakes competition reshapes their ambitions and identities.

A single mother reconnects with a drug lord to survive financially, embarking on a dangerous road trip with her child and family that spirals into criminal consequences.

Jackie Yee follows in her mother’s footsteps on her quest to win the Los Angeles Miss Chinatown pageant.

Despite their 40-year age gap, and the cancer treatment confining them to their small Texas town, two gay men embark on a road trip to San Francisco to grant themselves the Make-A-Wish they’re too old to receive.

With a bounty on her head, a young Chinese-American gunslinger poses as a mail-order bride to hide from the law and seek revenge for her murdered family.

After the sudden death of his immigrant husband, an American man’s tenuous relationship with his Muslim in-laws reaches a breaking point as he tries to fit into the funeral they’ve arranged in the Middle East.

A young OBGYN must trade a promising career in Chicago for a year working in her rural hometown’s Women’s Clinic in order to regain custody of her daughter. There, she’ll find that knowing obstetrics isn’t the same as knowing how to be a mother.

In Iran, a desperate mother sells her own organs to pay for her daughter’s cancer treatment, while in the United States, a wealthy father risks everything to find a heart for his ailing child—setting both on a path where love demands the unthinkable.

In a remote, cult-like compound atop a mysterious mesa, a teenage girl discovers that her abusive father’s claims of divine power mask an even darker truth.

Scarred from the twisted abuse by her beauty obsessed mother, a teenage girl in rural Texas escapes her basement prison propelling a bloody rampage that threatens the lives of all those unlucky enough to cross her path.

When a young woman discovers her charming new boyfriend is transporting bodies in a cooler across state lines, she must outwit his manipulation and survive a nightmarish road trip that blurs love, lies, and lethal control, before she becomes his next victim.

Kidnapping, premature birth, toxic ambition, drug lords, sudden death, selling organs, abusive parents, psychopaths...yeah, I'm feeling better already. I'm not knocking the writers. I'm sure they're all very talented and poured their heart into their stories. But I don't have an easy life. Like tens of millions of other Canadians and Americans I shoulder a lot of responsibility. I'm under pressure every day. Things happen...bad things...that I have no control over. I don't want to live your nightmare. I want to escape for 90 minutes or a couple of hours. And it would be nice if there was more than 4 screenwriting competitions that might potentially reward a story for being a fun and enjoyable read.

ChatGTP summed it up when I asked it to compare Moorland's competition chances vs. a script that made the finals in a Horror/Thriller category:

If you’re studying it for craft, here’s the real lesson

This script is valuable because it shows:

What competitions reward:

clarity
momentum
concept hook
readable escalation

What audiences emotionally respond to:

sensory immersion
subtextual dialogue
character-specific behavioral texture
emotionally charged environment writing

Those are not the same skill set.

Moorland has a strong concept, it's easy to follow, it has momentum and escalation. But it's ambitious. It's not small. It's not contained. It's bold, it has a strong voice, and it takes risks. Contests do not reward this. If anything, most will penalize it. And that's one reason why so few contest winners and finalists are break-out hits.

Rant over.

Looking forward to Season 3 of Wednesday. See you there.