Estee Williams' "How The Story Goes" wins Celtx Project of the Week!

"Kate, an indie Hollywood screenwriter, refuses the offer of a major studio to write a romantic comedy because she is morally opposed to the genre…until she meets the down-to-earth actor Michael who just may be her very own leading man."

That's the logline to this week's POW, a fun romantic comedy entitled How The Story Goes by writer and project creator Estee Williams.

If you hang around Project Central at all then you're probably familiar with Estee's work already because she frequently reached out to the community seeking feedback and suggestions in an effort to perfect this script. Looks like that effort proved useful as the positive and constructive comments came rolling in. Estee worked on the fixes and the end result was a tight, well written script that was both entertaining and a joy to read, and the added location shots helped the viewer achieve a true sense of the world in which her main characters live.

Estee was pretty tickled when I contacted her about winning the POW. Here are a few things she had to say about herself, her work, Celtx and its community

About Estee Williams
"I was born in SanFrancisco, California, raised in Beaufort, South Carolina and live in Evansville, Indiana. I am a high school math teacher who happens to rank writing as my favorite hobby. I started writing episodic online stories with my best friend as a way to continue a favorite show that got cancelled (okay, let’s just be blunt...we wrote “fanfic”). That website, WhoSaidItsOver is still up and I still plan on adding to it in the future. From that, I started wanting to work on my own original ideas...which is when I began writing screenplays."

The Project
"My role in How the Story Goes is writer. Period. Because I see this as a mainstream American feature (though some have disagreed with me), I am currently in the process of trying to sell it. Anyone buying? Just kidding. Seriously, though, I’ve taken a few film classes and had friends go through film school, but I don’t have the means or talent for producing my work so my goal is to get someone else to make it."

"The idea for this work came from a few different places. I’ve always loved romantic comedies: Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail, French Kiss, While You Were Sleeping, She’s All That, Serendipity, One Fine Day, The Holiday...just to name a few. So my tendency when it comes to writing is to go in that general direction, though some would point out that I have a lot of romance and a little bit of comedy, which I would agree with. I also happen to adore Kevin Williamson. I love his witty Dawson’s Creek dialog, but I particularly enjoy the movie Scream. The thing about Scream, though? I didn’t want to see it. I hated “scary movies.” I had this Friday the 13th game for Nintendo where you had to protect campers from a knife-wielding Jason. Hated it. Then , when I was a freshman in high school, a friend dragged me to see Scream. I loved it. The self-reference. The way it blatantly laid out the genre while also existing within the boundaries of that genre. It’s just so darn smart. And it made me love scary movies because I was able to appreciate them with a certain level of sophistication and understanding that I never had before. I even signed up for the class “History of Horror Film” in college. All because of Kevin Williamson and Scream."

"So. I got the idea to fuse the genre I naturally love most (romantic comedy) with the elements of Scream that forced me to love it (self-reference). I started researching romantic comedies to understand some of the key elements because I wanted them to be both referenced and utilized in my screenplay. I don’t know if I fully achieved my goal, but I got feedback from someone once that said he didn’t particularly like romantic comedy, but he liked my screenplay. Talk about full circle, right?"

The Community
"I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my work and give me feedback. I try to take suggestions and use them to improve my work, and I think I’ve been able to do that. Without Celtx, the forum and Project Central, I would be the only person influencing my work...and that just wouldn’t cut it. I wish I was as knowledgeable and helpful and some of the regular posters/reviewers so I could help other new writers the way this community has helped me. Thank you guys so much!"

Celtx
"I had a PC for forever. I had a program that a friend of mine got when she took a screenwriting class that I’d used to write the beginning of the screenplay. When my boyfriend and I switched to Macs, I was left with just a hard copy of my unfinished screenplay and no program to use to write the rest. We searched around on the web for Mac compatible, free writing programs...and Celtx came up. I was happy to have any program, but when I started playing around with all the features, I was shocked to have something of such high quality available for free. I’ve never used other high-end writing programs so I can’t compare, but I love Celtx and have never wanted the program to do something that it couldn’t. Celtx rocks!

Oh, and I retyped my original screenplay into Celtx, which I thought was going to be a horrible and tedious process. It actually allowed me to make some really great edits while learning to use the program. Not so bad after all."

So if there are any interested buyers out there, leave a comment on Estee's PC web page. I'm sure she'll get back to you lickety-split.
Congratulations and Good Luck, Estee!
from
Sheila and The C-Team