POV: How Erica Lane’s Personal Story Led to a ScreenCraft Fellowship Win

Erica Lane shares how winning the ScreenCraft Fellowship has changed her screenwriting career.

by ScreenCraft on December 30, 2024

Sometimes, all it takes is a single “yes” to transform your life. That’s exactly what happened to Erica Lane, the winner of ScreenCraft’s 2022 Fellowship competition with her pilot, Stop Looking at Me. This deeply personal project, which was inspired by her desire to explore and understand the world around her while experimenting with genre tropes, helped launch Lane’s screenwriting career.

Lane recently sat down with ScreenCraft to share her journey into screenwriting, her decision to enter ScreenCraft’s competition, and how her personal victories and challenges have shaped her path to success.

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The first steps you took in your screenwriting career (Did you go to film school? Did you write a spec? Did you join a writers' group?)

I went to film school! First at Boston University, then grad school for screenwriting at USC. I was coming from a small town in New Hampshire and didn't know a single person in film. I also wanted to learn as much as I could, so it felt like the right move. I wrote my first little short script in high school and thought that was fun, and I want to keep doing that.

Do you have a writing process?

If I'm just writing on my own, something will happen in my life that will eventually develop into an idea that lingers in my head until I sit down and write a few paragraphs of it. From there, I usually expand it into a treatment of a few pages and write bios for the characters. Then, I start writing pages and try to finish the script within two weeks.

I love to write a feature quickly, 10 pages a day or so, because for the first draft, I want to be fully immersed in the emotion and world of it without much interruption. If I get interrupted, I feel the momentum slipping away, and it gets harder to think of the characters. Those first draft weeks are my favorite part of the process. It's like being a kid again and playing pretend. After that, I let it sit for a few weeks and then rewrite it until the end of time.

How has your writing changed over time?

I think my writing has grown with me in that I'm not writing about the same experiences in the same way anymore. When I was a teenager, I was writing about my family and romantic relationships in a way that I was just grasping for understanding of it all. I'm totally still just grasping for that understanding, but I've learned a little bit more now. Life gets more complicated but also simpler every year, somehow.

When I was a kid, I was running around in the woods and writing fantasy stories full of whimsy. Now, I'm writing rom-coms and dark comedies about loss and how to move on from things I don't understand.

Writing has always been how I try to make sense of the world, and my world is just different now.

What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?

I think the script that I submitted to ScreenCraft for the fellowship, Stop Looking at Me, is my favorite. It's a half-hour comedy pilot about a high school girl who recently got Tourette's and is trying to figure out how to deal with her new reality and where she belongs.

It's a little more autobiographical than my other work and is really close to my heart. I've had Tourette's since middle school, and it would be really cool to make this show someday and see a character with it represented on screen.

What is your favorite thing that someone else has written?

For film: by Charlie Kaufman. TV: GIRLS, all the way. In print, BLUETS by Maggie Nelson, or anything by Joan Didion.

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynsk (Kate Winslet) in a bed on the beach in ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’

'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (2004)

Any roadblocks you encountered along the way?

Plenty, all of the time. The hardest thing is trying to balance working and surviving with writing. There have been times when I was working two to three jobs at once while still trying to write every day, and it's draining.

I think the people around you can also be a roadblock or a support, and it's important to have friendships and relationships with people who believe in you and your work. I feel so lucky to have wonderfully supportive friends and that we can lean on each other when obstacles come up.

What drew you to ScreenCraft? Any obstacles?

I had heard about the fellowship in grad school, as I had friends who had submitted and heard a lot of great things. It seemed like this contest had some real tangible help as a prize (in the form of meetings, networking, and writer development) that extended beyond just an accolade.

How have you worked with ScreenCraft to overcome obstacles you've encountered and strategize the next steps in your career? Lead to any results like generals, calls, meetings, or opportunities?

When I first won the fellowship, the ScreenCraft team was very helpful with setting up meetings for the fellowship week, and those meetings helped me get comfortable taking generals and pitches. It's something you have to practice, and it was great to get that experience!

I made some great connections thanks to ScreenCraft, and I really appreciate how they tailored their advice to my specific writing and goals.

What motivated you to keep going/was your breakthrough moment?

I think the breakthrough that motivated me most was gaining representation because that felt like the biggest hurdle before it happened. After that, a few months later, when I got my first feature with Lifetime, I felt like that really pushed me forward. I had always been nervous about pitching, and when I landed that OWA, it made me believe in myself more and gave me some more confidence going into future pitches.

Where are you currently in your career? Anything that you are excited about?

Currently, I'm writing and pitching new features, and have mostly been in the feature world, writing four thriller films for Lifetime that have premiered in the past year: Kidnapping in the Grand Canyon, You’re Not Supposed To Be Here, A Chef’s Deadly Revenge, and He Slid Into Her DMs. I had the best time working on them all, and seeing my words on screen has been surreal!

And I'm really excited about a few things! I have a couple of scripts circulating out there right now that I'm excited to find a home for. I just finished a first draft of a new dark comedy about dreams that I'm excited to rewrite and share. I'm also working on a horror script with a writing partner right now, which is something I haven't done before and has been so much fun. And my short film I finished earlier this year, RAW, just premiered at the New Hampshire Film Festival, and I'm waiting to hear back on some other fests! I really want to direct more projects in the coming year.

'Raw' (2024)

If you could give a writer currently where you were a year ago one bit of advice, what would it be?

Keep writing every day, even if it's just a few sentences or a page in your journal. And go to that film mixer thing you don't want to go to that your friend wants to drag you to. Even better, go alone, pretend to be a version of yourself with no social anxiety, and talk to randos. Also, don't date that person. You know the one. Well, you'll probably do it anyway. At least it'll become something to write about. That was way more than one piece of advice.