Wendy Wheeler Screenplays For Sale

News

DARK BLOOD got to quarterFinals in the Final Draft Contest. That means it was in the top 500 of 2500 submissions for 2007/08. I also got to send it to producer Andy Cohen with Grade A Entertainment, and to Seth Lockhart, agent/ manager with Creative Instinct.

I took a development job (meaning: getting the script story into shape and assisting with casting) with Bright Shining City Productions. The psycholological suspense screenplay, DEEPER & DEEPER, was written by local playwright and indie-award -winning actress, Cyndi Williams, from a story by Mariusz Kotowski. Production is scheduled for May/June 2008. It's fun work!

HEAVEN & NELL was a quarter-finalist in the 2007 Cynosure Screenwriting Contest (which looks for scripts featuring women or minority protagonists), in Writers Network and was in the top 10% in SlamDance too.

Also in 2007, I've expanded my screenwriting education with some significant names. Thanks to the San Diego Film Festival and ASA Conference, this is now the list of people I've workshopped with: Robert McKee (still the coolest), Chris Vogler, Ken Rotcop, Pilar Alessandra, Dave Trottier, Kate Sandler and Michael Hauge. Also met and pitched to Andy Cohen with Grade A Entertainment, who's reading a couple of my scripts.

THE CUNNING MAN was a second-rounder in the Austin Film Festival Heart of Film Screenwriting Contest for 2006. Good old script; I'm re-entering my feature length ones in the good screenwriting contests each year, starting now, because my friend Brian Anderson was a finalist at AFF last year with a horror script he'd entered eight years in a row!

HEAVEN & NELL was a second-rounder (which means in the top 10% usually) of the Austin Film Festival Heart of Film Screenwriting Contest for 2005. It was also a quarter finalist in the Writers Network/Fade-in-Online screenwriting contest this year and one of 10 finalists in the "First Fifteen Pages" contest of the Best Little Pitchfest in Texas, here in Austin in July. Didn't place but it was nice that all the pros at the pitchfest had read the pages. Also, I'm getting to send it and my DARK BLOOD script to some of the producers and agents I met at the Pitchfest and at the AFF. Keep your fingers crossed!

October 2005, we filmed my 6-page short HELLO, OFFICER right here in Austin. It's just got three characters and one setting. Angela Lee is the producer, and she used her many local contacts with FilmAustin to get the talent in front of and behind the camera. I got to be script supervisor, which was a trip! The plan is to get it placed in some film festivals!

Turning my fiction into movies was always a goal of mine. I'm a proud member of the Austin Screenwriters Group for the past six or seven years and have started doing development with local movie production companies. Plus I've gotten to study with the amazing Robert McKee in his Story workshop, with Chris Vogler on The Writer's Journey, with Michael Hague, Ken Trottier, and Ken Rotcop. I've also been a reader and 2nd round judge for the Austin Heart of Film competition for the past seven years.

I really enjoy screenwriting, but it's very, very hard work. I've got several feature length screenplays done now, have outlined a few more, have a half-dozen short scripts, and am working on a high-concept romantic comedy. I'm in the market for an agent, or a producer, or both. If you see a logline below you like, please email me for a copy of the script!

Loglines

HEAVEN & NELL is modern fantasy with a lot of soul. What happens when a con woman trying to go straight winds up in the one town in American where dishonesty can end the world as we know it? A recovering grifter thinks she's been left a bake shop in the same small town where she experienced first love. But she and her precocious daughter show up to find an eerily wholesome community with a secret of Biblical proportions. Confusion, complications, and all Hell breaks loose in the sleepy streets of Enoch. Read the synopsis of Heaven & Nell.

THE CUNNING MAN is period fantasy. In an alternate Colonial America where magic is a way of life, the plucky bride of Boston's best alchemist (a "cunning man" in the language of the times) disguises herself as a boy to go to sea to win a treasure and save her family. But the merchantmen who hired her? They're really pirates in disguise. And their treasure? It's guarded by a fierce and hungry monster. Read the synopsis of The Cunning Man.

DARK BLOOD is a scifi thriller that draws on Jewish legends of Lilith, Adam's first wife, combined with the new science of evolution biology, which can trace DNA back to man's first female ancestor. Randi, a reclusive artist, can pick up on the violent and sexual thoughts of others. Her successful stockbroker brother has a breakdown and commits a horrible act. The family's power and wealth keeps him out of prison, instead allowing him go with his family to an eerie, remote facility in the Blueridge Mountains. Imagine the Stepford Village by day, but the Island of Dr. Moureau by night... Randi cons her way in, where she learns that monsters really do exist--and that she'd rather be a daughter of Lilith than of Eve. Read the synopsis of Dark Blood.

AMISH MEN is Southern Gothic. Cissy is a high-spirited, ex-cheerleader whose father has condemned her to live in a trailer with her bastard son on a turkey farm in Concrete, Texas. She becomes convinced that the local Amish are plotting to steal Petey, but nobody takes her seriously. So she steals her father's rifle...Read the synopsis of Amish Men.

MOTHER DEVINE is a short film, set mostly on a city bus, and with only a few speaking parts. When the world as we know it almost ends one morning, uber-Yuppie Clarissa meets a powerful matron and learns a lesson about the interconnectedness of all things. Read a short synopsis of Mother Devine.

PERFECT BEAUTY is a short (24 page) horror script based on a story that appeared in Gorezone, sister pub to Fangoria. The scent of evil is in the air as a mysterious woman confronts a ruthless Houston socialite about her past. No synopsis is posted; if you'd like to read the teleplay please email me.

DESIREE'S SHADOW is a 10-page script based on my award-winning story in Dead of Night, a magazine for vampire erotica. Only three characters, a total of four voices, and two sets. It will require some minimal amount of special f/x, but I already have an Effects Assessment from Gary Walker of Tex F/X.

THE GOOD LAW Zen-like and enigmatic describes this short (6 pages) script about how enlightenment comes when you're not looking for it. The story: A Junior Leaguer socialite meets the Bodhidarma in the streets of downtown Austin--but she thinks he's just a homeless man with one shoe. No synopsis is posted; if you'd like to read the script please email me

HELLO, OFFICER is the story of a traffic cop who encounters a couple of crazy sisters. This was optioned by Big Plume Productions and was filmed October 2005. Here's information about the crew and filming.

If you're a producer or agent, please email me if interested in reading any of my scripts.