Screenplay Writing Competition: What It Is, Where It’s Run and How It’s Judged

An individual writing entry in which a school student writes the screenplay for a narrative short film of 10 to 15 minutes, entered in Sinhala, Tamil or English and judged on the script alone.

Screenplay Writing asks a student to do what a short story does not: tell a story in a form that someone else can film. Instead of narration and description, the entry is written as a screenplay, with scenes, action and dialogue laid out so that a director, an actor and a camera operator could pick it up and work from it. The competition this page is written from, a national school media-literacy programme in Sri Lanka, asks for a screenplay for a narrative short film and sets the running time of that film at 10 to 15 minutes, which in practice means a script of a few thousand words at most and a story small enough to be told in a handful of scenes.

The entry is open to students in two grade bands, Junior (Grades 6 to 9) and Senior (Grades 10 to 13), and each band is written in one of three language media, Sinhala, Tamil or English, so the competition is run as six separate contests and a winner is named for each age band and language. The theme is the writer’s own choice. The guideline asks entrants to pay attention to the story and also to the elements and structure of a screenplay, so a good idea alone is not enough: the page has to look and work like a script. Each screenplay needs a suitable title, the work must be the entrant’s own and must not have been entered in any other competition before, and a student may send in at most two screenplays. Screenplays for documentary films are not accepted; only narrative (fiction) films qualify.

A neat link exists with the sister Short Film competition in the same programme: the guideline says a screenplay written for a film entered there may also be entered here. A school drama or media club can therefore plan one project in two halves, a writer entering the script and a film team shooting it, though each competition is judged separately and by its own entry.

On the day the work is not performed, so a coordinator’s job is mostly logistics: receive the scripts with the application, check each one against the grade band, language and the two-entries limit, remove names before they go to the readers if the organiser wants anonymous reading, and collect each reader’s mark. The guideline prints no marking scheme and no points for the places, so the organiser has to decide how readers will score; the template installs the item with a default maximum of 100 marks and zero place points, and a coordinator can change both. First, second and third places and Certificates of Merit are awarded in each category.

Where Screenplay Writing is run

In eTalenter’s data the exact title Screenplay Writing is carried by one template, a Sri Lankan national school media-literacy competition run by a government information department for students of government, semi-government, private and international schools. Script and screenplay sections do appear in other school and youth festivals, usually under titles such as Script Writing or Playwriting, which have their own pages; this page describes only the Sri Lankan edition and does not claim use elsewhere.

• Sri Lanka

Key facts

• Individual entry: one student writes the screenplay; students of any school type (government, semi-government, private or international) may enter.
• Two grade bands: Junior is Grades 6 to 9 and Senior is Grades 10 to 13. The programme prints grades, not ages, so a coordinator should check each entrant’s grade.
• Three language media, Sinhala, Tamil and English, each judged separately, so a winner is chosen per band and per language.
• Written for a narrative short film running 10 to 15 minutes; documentary screenplays are not accepted. The theme is the writer’s own choice.
• At most two screenplays per contestant, each with a suitable title, original, and not previously entered in any other competition.
• No marks, criteria or place points are printed; the template installs 100 marks by default. First, second and third places and Certificates of Merit are awarded in each category.
• Idea starters, not rules: a single day in a school bus, a lost object passed between three people, a village festival seen through a child’s eyes, a school quarrel solved without adults, a twist set in one room.

On eTalenter, Screenplay Writing is filed under Creative Writing and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 1 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.

Across the templates that use it, Screenplay Writing is most often entered as an Individual competition, typically scored out of 100.

What judges look at in Screenplay Writing

What a Screenplay Writing panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:

• The programme names two things to watch: the story and the elements and structure of a screenplay. That gives readers two natural questions, whether the story is complete and moving, and whether the page is truly a screenplay rather than a short story typed in script-like lines.
• Story: a clear main character who wants something, an obstacle, a turning point and an ending that follows from what came before. A 10 to 15 minute film cannot hold many subplots, so a script that tries to cover a whole life in a few scenes usually loses marks here.
• Screenplay form: scene headings that say where and when, action lines that describe only what the camera can see or the microphone can hear, and dialogue set apart under the speaker’s name. Writing a character’s thoughts or feelings as narration, which cannot be filmed, is the commonest slip in a school entry.
• Dialogue and visual thinking: lines that sound like real speakers in the chosen language, and story moments shown through action and images rather than explained aloud. A reader marks up a script that a film team could shoot as written.
• Fit with the call: a narrative story, a plausible length for a 10 to 15 minute film, a suitable title and clean presentation. These are the checks a coordinator can apply before the readers see the entry, and a script that is clearly a documentary or far too long has a problem the panel cannot fix.

Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Screenplay Writing under Scoring Setup, or start from the full story and essay writing judging criteria guide.

How to prepare for Screenplay Writing

How entrants and their teachers usually get Screenplay Writing right on the day:

• Read two or three published screenplays before writing, ideally short films, and notice how little the action lines say compared with a story. Copying the layout of a real script is the fastest way to learn the form.
• Pick one small story that fits in 10 to 15 minutes of screen time: one main character, one place or two, one problem. Write the story in five sentences first, then expand each sentence into a scene.
• Write in the language you think in. The competition is judged separately in Sinhala, Tamil and English, so choose the medium in which your dialogue will sound natural, not the one that seems most impressive.
• After the first draft, read every line of dialogue aloud and cut anything no real person would say. Then check every action line: if a camera could not show it, rewrite it or turn it into something visible.
• Give the script a title that fits the story and keep to the two-entry limit; use the second entry for a different idea rather than a rewrite of the first.
• Ask a classmate or teacher to read it cold and tell you what happens in each scene. If they cannot, the structure is unclear, whatever the idea is. Make sure the work is wholly your own, since the programme withdraws awards from entries later found not to be.
• Teachers and clubs: if a film team is working on the Short Film competition, a script written for that film can be entered here too, so agree early who owns which entry.

Frequently asked questions

Is Screenplay Writing judged individually or as a team?

Across eTalenter’s templates it’s most often run as an Individual entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.

Is a screenplay the same as a short story?

No. A short story is written to be read and can describe thoughts and feelings. A screenplay is written to be filmed, so it shows only what can be seen and heard, in scenes with action lines and dialogue. This programme runs Short Story and Screenplay Writing as separate competitions.

How long should the screenplay be?

The guideline sets the film at 10 to 15 minutes and does not print a page or word count for the script. As a rule of thumb, one script page equals about a minute of screen time in the usual format, so a script of roughly 10 to 15 pages is a sensible target; the organiser’s own submission rules take priority.

Can I enter a documentary screenplay?

No. Only screenplays for narrative (fiction) films are accepted; documentary screenplays are not.

Can the same script be used for the Short Film competition?

Yes. The guideline says a screenplay written for a film entered in the Short Film competition may also be entered in Screenplay Writing. The two competitions are judged separately.

How many screenplays may one student enter?

At most two, each with its own title, and neither may have been entered in any other competition before.

Want the full judging picture? Read the full story and essay writing judging criteria guide, or browse every creative writing competition item.