Rebecca Farivar
from Movies I Never Wrote

The world has been destroyed. It’s a scorched Earth scenario. A teenage girl has survived; her family is dead. She hikes through debris searching for others. Cut to present day. There is no scorched Earth scenario. It is a 15-year-old girl writing the screenplay of a scorched Earth scenario. She stays in her room imagining the movie and trying to write. She is lonely and writing the screenplay with dreams that it will really become a movie and she can leave her life. Cut to her fantasy of being a celebrated writer in Hollywood. She’s at the Oscars, the youngest nominee for Best Original Screenplay, and everyone is showering her with attention and praise. They ask, “how did you write such a powerful movie at such a young age?” Cut back to the screenplay she is writing. After weeks, the girl in the movie finds a group of teenagers like her. Only teenagers have survived and they don’t know why. They don’t know who or what caused the destruction. They forage for food, make weapons and shelter. Cut back to present day. The girl writing the screenplay is at school eating lunch alone. She’s not picked on; just ignored, which can in some ways be worse. At home, her parents are depressed, unsatisfied with their life choices, and generally living a bored existence. They offer no inspiration or warmth, though they are not bad people. That’s the thing about her life; it’s not dramatically bad, just mediocre. She dreams of something more. Cut to her fantasy back at the Oscars. She’s sitting in the audience as they announce the winner for Best Original Screenplay. It’s her. She is overjoyed. Hollywood is outpouring with love and admiration. She gives a stirring acceptance speech. Cut back to the screenplay. The girl in the movie emerges as the leader of the group. She is putting together the mystery of what happened and why only teenagers survived. Someone with bad intentions also emerges from the group. The group divides into two factions and they must fight each other. Cut to present day. She refuses to leave her room, caught up in her two fantasies, one the script and one the dream of the script saving her. Her parents are frustrated and don’t know what to do. She’s always been a good girl. She’s not trying to disobey them, she just can’t continue to live the life she has when the life in her head is so much better. The last scene is her laying on her bed, staring at the ceiling, audio of both the script and the Oscars overlapping, showing she is lost in her head. It is geared toward young adults in the vein of the The Neverending Story; a kid-like movie that is also quite sad.