Scripts Archives – Jeff James – Screenwriter for Camp Camp and The Leet World

One of my favorite activities on the Script Hive Discord server is the One Page Challenge.

Every week, a new prompt is posted with a call for entries. Anyone can submit as long as their script is no longer than a page. The prizes are generally only the accolades of your peers, but there are occasional guest hosts and more significant prizes.

It’s a great way to keep my writing muscles limber and get immediate feedback. I think it’s helped me improve my writing craft significantly over the past year, and it’s also given me inspiration for a few ideas that I might turn into longer pieces.

My Favorite Submissions (So Far)

Prompt, Week #27

A bus ride
A character is daydreaming

Title: Where the Road Curves
Logline: A bus ride on a darkened rural road is all a young woman needs to find supernatural help.
Notes: This is easily my favorite of the OPCs I’ve written so far. It also got the most votes for the week.

Prompt, Week #64

The genre is ‘Horror’
A birth – could be the birth of a child, an invention, a group or organization etc.
No dialogue allowed

Title: The New Queen
Logline: When a king forces his queen to drink a potion to make her young again, there are bloody results.
Notes: I was really happy with how this one turned out and decided to rewrite it as a short story.

Prompt, Week #66

The scene takes place in a busy location.
A twisted or unlikely romance.

Title: A Storm of Wings
Logline: When military men corner a young woman, she calls for supernatural help.
Notes: I really enjoy the gothic fantasy tone I achieved here.

Prompt, Week #74

Bees.
A character’s life is changed forever.

Title: Outer Rim Café
Logline: Two friends catch up at a space station cafe, but things take a strange turn when one notices a bee.

Prompt, Week #77

The Genre is: Adventure
Your main character/s is under 16
A surprise!

Title: The Bone Forest
Logline: A scout and his talking squirrel friend journey through a forest made of bones.
Notes: This one received the most votes for the week.

Prompt, Week #81

Your page takes place in one location.
A place you would never expect to be haunted.
A gruesome death using only two action lines.

Title: Eidolon Vintage
Logline: When a young woman visits a strange vintage shop, the shopkeeper makes it difficult to browse in peace.
Notes: This received the most votes for the week and the guest host picked it as a runner-up.

Prompt, Week #87

The sub-genre is: Budget Horror
You must open the page on the image of a physical object
And close the page on an image of that same object

Title: FMK
Logline: Four girls hang out in an empty house, but their night takes a dark turn when they play a game.
Notes: This script placed as a quarter-finalist in the 2022 Killer Shorts contest. Pretty cool!

All Other Submissions

Prompt, Week #18

A setting with a pool
A voice-over narrator

Title: The Pool Car
Logline: A private detective searching for a missing girl takes a ride in a strange car.
Notes: This was my first attempt at a one page challenge, but I haven’t shared it until now.

Prompt, Week #19

This is page 75 of a feature film, all hope is lost for our main character
The main character must be John Goodman, playing himself
The page/main scene must take place in a moving vehicle

Title: Widdershins
Logline: Two versions of John Goodman, one young and one old, make last-minute plans as they ride in a fairy seed-ship.
Notes: This is the first OPC I actually posted on the server. I fully admit to making it as weird as possible!

Prompt, Week #20

Your page must focus on the inciting incident of a feature film
You must include the line “This can’t be accurate?” in dialogue
Choose one of the following as your setting:
- Somewhere underground
- Motel Room
- Fast Food Restaurant
- Mars

Title: Mister Lonestar
Logline: A mysterious trickster tries to convince an angry young man to become his apprentice.
Notes: This won second place in a guest-hosted challenge.

Prompt, Week #21

Your Protagonist is introduced in their identifying environment. Use whatever you want to get there.
Your MC is not aligned with that environment. Any way to accomplish this is fine. Some examples might be:
- Highlighting the opposite ideals of your MC (as advertised by Craig Mazin)
- Indicating your MC is trying to be something they are not (see K. M. Weiland)
- Setting your MC up with a difficult decision that will impact their future lives wholly (R. McKee).
- Or forge your own paradigm! There are literally no rules here, only subjective interpretations of emotional resonance.

Title: The Fire Remembered
Logline: A young farm girl tussles with a dragon.

Prompt, Week #22

Have a character do objectively morally good things
Make the audience increasingly hate/despise this character

Title: Coffee, Interrupted
Logline: A nervous man waits to speak to a woman but is overshadowed by a another, better man.

Prompt, Week #23

The genre is Thriller
Important exposition must be delivered through the use of a smartphone (whether on a call, through a text or photo, or by using the smartphone in any other way)

Title: The Bird-Watchers
Logline: A furtive meeting on a secluded park bench takes a violent turn.

Prompt, Week #26

Two scenes, each 1 page long (so 2 pages total!)
Minimal action lines
Each scene involves the MC talking to a different single person
- In one scene, the MC has authority over the other person
- In the other scene, the other person has authority over the MC

Title: Elizabeth(s)
Logline: Two identical women plan a heist, but when one is caught, a secret about her nature is revealed.
Notes: This was the rare two-page challenge!

Prompt, Week #28

Your page must include exactly 2 speaking characters
One character portrays themselves as having lower social status in order to better achieve their goal
The whole page takes place during a Halloween party

Title: Plastic Fangs
Logline: Two college guys attend a Halloween party, but when one suggests a costume change, the other takes offense.

Prompt, Week #29

All of the characters have to be middle-schoolers
There has to be a fantasy/supernatural element
Your page takes place at one of these locations:
- A junkyard
- A water tower
- An amusement park
- A submarine

Title: The Case of the Upside-Down Ocean
Logline: A group of kids drive a submarine into an ocean in the sky to try and save their sick friend.

Prompt, Week #55

A sound effect.
An artifact from an unknown technology
The line “That’s just crazy enough to work”

Title: Comfort Zone
Logline: Two friends explore the universe hiding inside a puffy couch.

Prompt, Week #56

An egg.
A character who switches tactics to get what they want.
A Super or ‘Chyron’

Title: Scrambled
Logline: When a man finds himself trapped inside a mysterious white void, he tries to convince his captor to let him out.

Prompt, Week #67

The Genre is: Science Fiction
Your main characters must hate each-other
It ends with an explosion (of any size)
You must invent a new word that is:
- Relevant to the plot or characters
- Appears in dialogue
- Can be understood from context clues only.

Title: Doggerel
Logline: A family dog takes issue with the robot dog he suspects is meant to replace him.

Prompt, Week #71

Your main character seems to have achieved everything they could possibly want.
Something makes them realize what they actually want.

Title: Puzzling
Logline: A puzzle-loving man is drawn out of his comfort zone when his neighbor shows him a mysterious artifact.

Prompt, Week #72

Your page takes place in one location.
We must never see ‘the monster’
But we should know what that monster is.

Title: Crust Punks
Logline: A scrappy punk band realizes that a former member may be taking revenge from beyond the grave.

Prompt, Week #82

Your characters are on holiday.
Tensions rise during an awkward moment.

Title: Out of Body
Logline: A hip young couple shares a relaxing out-of-body experience, but things go badly when the woman jokes around.

Prompt, Week #83

The Genre is Animation
A character who isn’t human that can talk.
A visual or special effect.

Title: The Deeper Cut
Logline: A gravely injured man confers with his bizarre, toothy familiar as they search for a dragon.

Prompt, Week #89

Your page must take place in space.
A heist.

Title: Haste, Spice
Logline: A woman on a date in a man’s luxury cabin reveals her ulterior motives when their spaceship’s gravity field abruptly shuts off.

Prompt, Week #94

The page must start on a dead body
The words “you’re not serious” included in dialogue
The page must end with us knowing what actions will be undertaken next in the story

Title: Inheritance
Logline: When a young woman inherits her late uncle’s mansion, she is disturbed to learn about his dying wish.
Notes: Voted favorite of the week by other members of the Discord.