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Native screenwriter a semifinalist

Nolan Lynch's screenplay 'Starsfall' still in the running for a fellowship

By: Laurent Bonczijk
Published: Newberg Graphic 9/6/2011 7:16:00 PM

A former Newberg resident and Veritas graduate has edged thousands of fellow screenwriters to reach the semifinals of a national competition and is still in the running for a prestigious fellowship.

Nolan Lynch, who graduated from Veritas in 2005 and recently earned a master's degree in screenwriting from Chapman University's Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, is one of 120 semifinalists for a Nicholl Fellowship. This is quite a feat, as the field started with 6,730 people.

"Starsfall," as his screenplay is known, was Lynch's thesis in a yearlong class taught by David Ward, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "The Sting," Lynch wrote in an e-mail. Lynch said he entered the play as an afterthought. He knew of the contest as "the big one, the screenwriting competition to end all screenwriting competitions," but didn't feel his screenplay was ready or that it was suited for the competition. The Nicholl Fellowships tend to favor small dramas and characters, Lynch said.

His screenplay is anything but.

It's a fantasy western with demons and warrior priests, an alternate wild west film filled with action, "in which magic has become commonplace and the Union and the Confederacy have joined forces against an invasion of fallen angels. Also, there are steam-powered cyborgs."

Ward was underwhelmed by the idea when Lynch first pitched it. Eventually the pair agreed that Lynch should start writing and producing drafts to see if any good came of it. "You can outline as much as you like, but you can't tell how a story will really feel, whether it will be any good, until you get inside it and run around a little bit," Lynch wrote.

"So I wrote two or three drafts over the course of the year, bringing in new pages each week to read along with the other screenwriting students," he continued. "Everyone seemed to enjoy it, which was great, and each week Ward gave me the same advice: 'OK. Keep doing what you're doing.' Which was at least encouraging even if it wasn't especially helpful."

At the end of the year Ward nominated Lynch's screenplay for a Cecil (after Cecil B. de Mille), a school competition that imitates the Oscars. Lynch didn't win but he wrote that he felt honored Ward would even nominate him after his earlier doubts.

Five of the winning scripts in the Nicholl competition will receive $30,000 fellowships, enabling the winners to live for a year and write. Five more will be selected as finalists.

Even if he doesn't win, Lynch, who works the night shift at a company that digitizes video footage and lives with his wife, Emma, in a 300-square-foot apartment in Long Beach, Calif., has already received notice thanks to his progression in the competition: It landed him a manager, who became interested after reading his manuscript. A win would not only allow him the freedom to write, but it would bring a lot of attention from industry professionals.

Lynch said his imagination is fed by his liberal arts education and that he uses old-fashioned notebooks to write down and develop ideas. He already has 30 of them, each of which is supposed to contain a single idea, a rule he can't always follow. "It's a mess, but the tactile, kinesthetic nature of the process helps me work through everything in a concrete way," he said. "It makes it easier to make decisions."

While he doesn't set goals for himself (a trait he doesn't recommend), he will write until he's too tired to continue and likes meaningful stories. His script, with all the action and the eye-popping imagination, is at the end nothing more than the story of a doomed friendship between a man and a 7-year-old girl.

Lynch said that a writer is only as good as his or her next screenplay, "So I keep making stuff up and writing it down."