Interview: Stephanie Shannon (2013 Nicholl Winner, 2013 Black List)

The Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition is the most prestigious of its kind and holds a primary place of importance in Hollywood movie development circles. With the recent announcement of the 2014 Nicholl Fellowship winners, I thought it would be a good idea to reprint all of the interviews I have done with previous Nicholl winners since there’s a lot to be learned from these talented writers. Today: Stephanie Shannon, interview originally posted March 2014.

Stephanie Shannon not only is one of five recipients of the 2013 Academy Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, she did it with her very first full-length screenplay: “Queen of Hearts.” Beyond that, the script landed on the 2013 Black List.

Here are links to the six installments of the entire interview:

Part 1: “I read a lot of scripts on that desk. When I was reading, all I could think was that I wish I had tried harder to be a writer. I just felt like I could write something better than half of what I was reading.”

Part 2: “I made a promise to myself that I would write a screenplay that year and enter the Nicholl. This was around November of last year. I started researching in December. Then I started writing in February.”

Part 3: “Like with me, I wanted to be a writer, but I thought it wasn’t practical. But, turns out it was something I could do. If you really embrace who you are, these amazing, wonderful things can happen.”

Part 4: “What I felt was interesting about Alice In Wonderland is that before it came upon the scene, most children’s books were very routine. They were all based around morals and lessons and kind of talked down to the child, making them feel like they weren’t allowed to have fun. I think Lewis Carroll is the first person to make the child the hero of the story.”

Part 5: “To me, writing is a lot like playing God. You’ve got these people down there with free will. And you don’t want to tell them exactly what to do per se. But you can know their minds and tendencies and orchestrate certain events in their lives that nudge them in the direction you want them to go, to fulfill a greater plan. If I look at the relationship between plot and character in that way, I think the result becomes much more organic.”

Part 6: “That’s what’s beautiful about storytelling. It’s ageless. It’s a way to affect the lives of people that you’ll never even know their names, but you know that you have.”

Stephanie is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.

I am happy to report I have interviews lined up with two more of the 2013 Nicholl winners and all four of the 2014 winners.

Tomorrow: Barbara Stepansky (2013 Nicholl Winner, 2013 Black List).

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