One of the best ways for screenwriters to enter this extremely competitive industry is through screenwriting competitions and scholarships. This is how television and feature screenwriter Amadou Diallo, along with many other talented writers, began his career. Diallo, who has worked on three television shows and recently sold his first feature film, is also trying to navigate the post-strike world of Hollywood.
While contests can often be frustrating for new writers who don’t place, Diallo discovered which contests can help writers and how to stay motivated and invest in yourself as you continue to write, compete, and (hopefully) win.
Diallo and I sat down to discuss all things contesting, from what to look for in a contest, to preparing a script before submission, to getting representation.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
ScreenCraft: When did you start competing? How do you measure your progress in the game?
Amadou Diallo: Yes, that’s a great question. I think once I decided to move into screenwriting, when you write that first pilot, you probably have a few people read it, and then, of course, it’s the whole contest thing of, “What should I enter? How should I enter?” “Should I attend a lot?” i started doing that [with] Probably a strong pilot when I entered. I only entered one thing, today I just wanted to add a spreadsheet of all the submissions I’ve made, which is an investment.
Through contests, I came to realize that contests are not as helpful as one-off contests due to the anonymity of the readers. You don’t know who’s reading it. So if you just say, “I’m going to submit one thing to a contest that will tell me if I’m a good screenwriter,” like you can’t really do that. But I think if you can put it all together, if you have the ability to invest in submitting multiple projects, you can see over time that, okay, maybe the first year, the first round doesn’t produce anything . And then the next year, I had some pieces that made it to the second round of semi-finals, quarter-finals, and that kind of thing was an improvement that I could see in my work. And then you get to the second round, the quarterfinals, the semifinals, and then you play some bigger tournaments and get to [the] Austin second round [Film Festival competition].
This has worked for me in a broader sense, and overall my submissions have performed better over time in this series of competitions. I do try to deliberately not do races with 20 entries so you can win something, but do some bigger races and mid-sized races for good measure, but I think it’s definitely a long race.
SC: When did you start seeing some real results from the competition? What does that look like?
advertise: It’s like, can I make it to the first round? How long does it take to receive a rejection letter? I think the first year was pretty brutal. I think in my second year of doing this, I started to get more attention. helpful is [that] You know, I had a lot to submit, so the first year I only had one pilot, and the second year, I wrote two more.
This is another thing that competitions are very helpful in generating output. One of the biggest benefits of the competition as I look back from 2019 to now, I always think, is that every year I wrote at least two original things, whether it was a pilot or a feature. You know, I spent a long time on a verbal pitch document, so I think it was because of that. It was harder than just writing the pilot. So I think again, that’s when I started to see progress, when I started to produce more output. and [looking to see if] These pieces are now getting better attention in these competitions.
Read more: How to Win a Screenwriting Contest, Competition or Scholarship
SC: Now, when you look at the contests that you choose to submit to, what would make them qualify for you? Are you looking for a specific prize? Which ones really appeal to you?
advertise: I think for me it’s the visibility, you know, look at the games that people are talking about on Twitter and you’ll see a bunch of people waiting for the first round decision. So, you hear about big things like the final draft [Big Break]Austin and [Academy] Nicole. There are a lot more like WeScreenplay and ScreenCraft that I don’t want to do. But I guess if I’ve heard other writers talk about them, that’s the measuring stick.
SC: Eventually, your writing started to really catch on in competitions. I know you did a great job using the tracking pad in the Launch Pad contest. Mentoring is also important. Can we talk about what these wins have created for you?
advertise: I find it interesting that those two times you mentioned are the only two times I’ve ever won a contest. The Launch Pad is great because you just have to win while trying to break in. This is really helpful.
Guidance is important. That was the only scholarship I ever won. This was crucial to my career as it came with 12 months of one-to-one mentoring with producers. It’s life-changing in so many ways because there’s two elements to that, trying to get your work to the level it needs to be to achieve that mythical, undeniable spirit. But once you feel like you’re ready, or once people tell you you’re ready and you need to get the access you need, you need to build relationships with people in the industry who are doing what you want to do. The guidance with my mentor Melanie Manich was the most important. From the beginning we had a great relationship. We are still friends to this day. We will send a text message to inquire [each other]. When she celebrates my victories, I celebrate hers.
The missing part, the hardest part to get, is the connections, and that’s where the value of scholarship lies. I know for Launchpad, what it does is… when I clicked on that, I didn’t have a manager, so I started getting calls from my manager. I’ll be honest with all of them, maybe three or four reached out. But none of them are ideal. None of them are suitable in the long run. But it’s very valuable because I can see things that I don’t want, or that aren’t what I’m looking for in a sales rep. When I did meet my current manager, it was a day and night where I was like, “Oh, this is how it should feel when someone says they’re interested in you.”
Even though the initial manager sit-down can be overwhelming, they still come to me. It would have been much worse if I had just gone to the manager blindly. So I think competition does and provides that. Again, this is an opportunity to build relationships with people in the industry. This is very important.
Read more: The Importance of Mentoring in a Writing Career
SC: Now, for all the writers out there who are watching this show, who are building their careers, trying to figure out their path and thinking about entering competitions. What do you think they should consider when debating what to submit or what to submit?
advertise: As I said at the beginning, you can’t watch [contest] As a one-off judgment of your worth. As a writer, this is not what they were born to do. Combined with competitions, you need people in your circle to read, you need readers you know. Your readers don’t have to be Steven Spielberg. But it has to be someone you know so you can consider their perspective and experience. If I send a script to a producer to read and they have notes on it, I’m going to act that way in a certain way, whereas if one of my peers on the writing staff writes a completely different genre than mine, I’m going to How do you feel about their work? Knowing that person, you can filter out what works for you and what you might need to keep, which is hard to do in competition.
Once you have a circle of readers that you trust, these contests are like a big cherry on top that give you honest feedback. This helps when it comes time to submit some contests to some blind readers because, again, the first round of contests is a real adventure. One might think that when you enter a competition with the name of an Oscar-winning director, it doesn’t matter who is on the jury. That’s not the first round of people who read your work. It’s someone who gets paid to read it, they can be anyone, they might have had a bad day, they might have just broken up with their partner that morning, and they read your romantic comedy and are like, ” This sucks.
In order for your script to get noticed in the competition, it has to be very, very prominent and powerful. You can’t explain the taste of this anonymous reader. What you can do is if you submit content that has a strong point of view and has your voice. It’s not cookie-cutter or a simple copy of everything we see on TV. You have a really good chance because having read a few scholarships now, 99% of what you get feels like a collection of TV shows you’ve already watched, which I think makes sense. If you’re going to write for television, why shouldn’t you write something that sounds like something you’ve seen on television? But the reality is, that’s not what most people are looking for. They’re looking for a voice, they’re looking for a passion, they’re looking for a vision, and if you can do that, I think you know your chances of getting through the first round, the hurdles, and the competition are definitely good. So you can use that as a yardstick.
Read more: How do screenwriters know when to accept or reject notes and feedback?
