Writing a New Story

Late summer 2017, I began my journey as a screenwriting concentration in the basement of the Art and Design Building. A room full of freshmen, all looking to turn their curiosity and creativity into something more — maybe a degree, maybe a career.

As I watched film after film, I found myself squinting to find the screenwriter, while the director’s name flashed across the frame in bold. “Film is a director’s medium,” I heard. “Screenwriting is just the blueprint,” as if the Taj Mahal and every other architectural beauty didn’t have a blueprint of their own. There’s an idea that unless your script is produced it has no value. Storyline aims to write a new narrative.

Somewhere between late-night movie showings and 15-page deadlines, Film and Video Studies nurtured my curiosity into passion and passion into purpose. Screenplay is more than action and dialogue. It’s more than visual description dependent on direction. Our screenplays are a reflection of ourselves, they reflect all of the passion and purpose infused in us. Screenplay is storytelling, it’s literature. The pages we pen deserve to be shared and honored as pages.

These ideas lead me to question how we could make something at Mason uniquely for screenwriters. The answer is Storyline. Storyline is a labor of love from a screenwriter to screenwriters. As your curiosity begins to change form, may this be your outlet, your celebration, and inspiration.

Keep Writing, CJ Grooms Alumna, Film and Video Studies

Major: Film and Video Studies

Graduating in: 2025

Screenplay(s): Pandora’s Box

Logline: A powerful, young man turns to a psychic to get revenge for a client.

Why do you feel this publication is important?

“I find this publication important because it shows that I do have some talent in screenwriting that others are receptive to. Since when I write my scripts, I write what I want to write, but I also tend to be concerned with reaction to my work (like how I feel most screenwriters are). So seeing my script get some acknowledgment is very encouraging and shows that I am on the right path.”

What are the inspirations/motivations behind your screenplay? “The inspiration for this script came from my dislike of psychics and my interest in superpowers. So this script serves as a melding between these two interests, in a sort of what-if scenario of a fake psychic meeting a real psychic. But it is also part of a different idea that I’ve been playing around with, and this serves as an example of how that would work.”