WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Genius Writer Who Will Never Fall Again ◈
Chapter 5: Contest (2)
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This was a sudden switch to an open contest, unlike what I remembered.
What changed?
After weighing the factors, I was the only variable.
‘What did I do to change this?’
I looked back over everything I had done since returning, but nothing particularly stood out.
Still, it wasn't as though I had had no contact with the industry at all.
Big or small, my actions must have caused changes here and there. Those changes had probably created a butterfly effect.
I thought about it a little longer, then gave up.
Trying to understand everything like a paranoid person was realistically impossible.
Obsessing over it was inefficient.
‘Either way, what I need to do won't change.’
I looked over the guidelines.
The submission period was twenty-five days.
The judging period was forty days.
That was a tight schedule for a contest.
They wanted at least four episodes' worth of script, along with a proposal and synopsis, all within three weeks.
Still, the intent seemed sound.
‘They mean to choose from scripts that are already somewhat prepared, or scripts that can be prepared even in that short time.’
Anyone with half a brain could see it.
This contest was meant to find emergency help.
Depending on how quickly a writer worked, they might end up writing scripts on the fly.
And there was one more thing. It was also a negotiation tactic, telling production companies to bring out the quality scripts they had been holding back.
So how prepared was I?
Well...
‘Just one more episode.’
Since returning, I had spent nearly all my spare time writing the script.
I wasn't coming up with every detail from scratch. After this drama had fallen through in my previous life, I had racked my brain over it and refined the script until the brink of death. That was why I could work this quickly.
Four episodes was perfect.
‘It’s right where the protagonist's faction starts rising.’
Yeongho, who had fallen into Joseon, was beginning to seize control of the surrounding region alongside the female lead, an inexperienced tavern keeper.
Supporting characters added weight to the protagonist's faction, action began to stand out, and the genre's character reached its peak.
And there was one more thing.
[“A beast pretending to be a chivalrous hero.”]
The protagonist's archenemy.
Jang Bung-ik, a notorious hunter of sword fraternities during King Yeongjo's reign and the main figure who would later become Minister of Taxation, began to establish the conflict in earnest.
All I had to do was write.
I opened my word processor.
My fingers flew.
[“Know how you catch men who bark like dogs? Men like me keep them in line by rank. That's how things work in this business.”]
Words poured out, filling the blank manuscript pages.
For days and nights, I typed as if possessed. I revised what I had written, pieced it together, and organized the synopsis and proposal as well.
One week after the announcement went up.
‘And... send.’
I sent my manuscript to WBS.
* * *
“Honey, I heard you opened a contest?”
At the dining table of an apartment in Sangam-dong, a woman asked the question.
She gave off such a glamorous air that it was hard to see her as an ordinary homemaker.
Joo Young-wol, the pinnacle of Korean actresses and an icon who had defined an era.
She was also Seong-hun's mother and Tae-jin's wife.
Tae-jin answered.
“A slot fell through, and we didn't have a suitable script.”
“Still, isn't a contest an awful lot of work?”
“We have to do it somehow. It's a production with a sizeable budget.”
“Is that the whole reason?”
Young-wol smiled gently.
Her sharply defined features formed smooth lines. In her heyday, people had whispered that she looked like a nine-tailed fox.
“I heard you looked at Seong-hun's friend's script not long ago.”
“I did.”
“You have that one in mind, don't you?”
Tae-jin didn't answer.
His silence usually meant yes.
“I knew it. Then couldn't you have just taken it on the spot? You really like making things complicated.”
“There’s an issue with Director Jo. It wouldn't look good if I made it seem like I was planting the script.”
“Ah, the matter our Seong-hun got tangled up in? So that's why you made it a blind submission? Office politics is hard.”
“Even aside from that, I need other people's opinions.”
“You'll advance it to the final round, then let your staff look at it?”
“No. I won't take part in the preliminary judging.”
Young-wol's eyes widened in surprise.
“What if it gets rejected?”
“Then that's a shame. It means my instincts are off.”
It was a matter-of-fact answer, but also a funny thing to say.
It was even more so when considering Tae-jin's career.
He might be called a department head now, but there had once been a time when Tae-jin was a new employee without a single backer.
From rookie assistant director to executive producer, Tae-jin had discovered scripts that became extraordinary hits more than ten times over.
Tae-jin was still spoken of as a legend solely because of those achievements in the drama department.
That made Young-wol curious.
‘What on earth did Jae-kyung write?’
The college junior Seong-hun was always bragging about.
Until now, that had been all Jae-kyung meant to Young-wol.
But that seemed likely to change.
A piece of writing that had satisfied that script demon.
“What if it fails to shine in the preliminary round and gets eliminated?”
“Then it has no luck. I don't need it.”
“Pfft!”
It was true.
In broadcasting, a hit was seven parts luck and three parts skill.
Even overwhelming ability could not beat those favored by Heaven.
A writer with both luck and skill was called a star writer.
They had enough influence to summon a department head for a private meeting.
Why?
Because they earned that much money for the network.
If that script made it through the final judging and won...
‘Well, that would make things interesting.’
Perhaps ripples would finally spread across these stagnant waters.
Young-wol stopped there and smiled.
* * *
If anyone had asked what the drama department had been like over the past few weeks, every employee would have given the same answer.
“I've written ten resignation letters.”
The sudden open blind contest was one of the greatest crises of a producer-director's career.
They had hoped that the short deadline and large required submission would mean few entrants.
That hope had been thoroughly betrayed.
There were exactly 837 submissions.
It felt as though every aspiring drama writer in the country, along with every writer holding an unpublished script, had rushed in.
The sheer amount of work required for judging was terrifying.
Everyone nearly worked themselves to death reading scripts.
At least they had firm standards.
More than half the entries were rejected without even reading five pages.
“Cut the low-budget genres. Cut the rom-coms too.”
Romantic comedies and sitcoms made up the largest share of the submissions, but unless the writing was impossible to ignore, they were all rejected.
The production budget for this broadcast was substantial.
Next, scripts in genres already represented among their stored scripts were rejected as well.
Naturally, the reason was that they were below standard.
After filtering through them all, only fifty works made it as far as having one full episode read.
That was when the real work began.
Producer-directors without anything currently scheduled focused even harder, thinking that the winning work might become their own project.
Jo Du-ho was one of them.
“Now this is a script! Huh? It has that depth those rude little brat writers, barely dry behind the ears, can never produce! Eh? If I pick this up, I could make it this year's flagship hit right away... Kyaa, this is real art!”
The people around Du-ho frowned.
It had already been over a month since Du-ho had celebrated finding a good new writer, only to end up with egg on the face.
Since then, not a day had gone by without Du-ho cursing that rookie writer, and people were beginning to dislike Du-ho more than they found the story amusing.
Here Du-ho went again.
That feeling was written all over their faces.
Still, everyone privately agreed with the praise for Sword Pact, One Lord.
It wasn't a work that suited words like artistic or awe-inspiring.
It was simply mercilessly commercial.
Every scene, every line, and every setting was constructed with commercial appeal in mind. As long as someone knew how to operate a camera, a solid performance was plainly visible.
Du-ho had fallen hard for it.
“This has to go with me! Do you know how fired up I am right now?”
Everyone knew those words were a demonstration for the chief producers.
If Sword Pact, One Lord won the final selection and Du-ho was not assigned to it, everyone knew how much Du-ho would foam at the mouth.
A producer-director with two consecutive hits had considerable influence.
As people did in any workplace, everyone gave up on Sword Pact, One Lord. Better to avoid shit because it was filthy.
Of course, whether Sword Pact, One Lord won or not was up to the higher-ups.
Still, everyone sensed something.
“It's too overwhelming, isn't it?”
“That's not the only reason. More than anything, it fits the current situation perfectly.”
Everyone there had instincts for the field.
No one expected an upset.
Instead, there was only one thing they wondered.
“But seriously, who wrote this?”
The identity of Sword Pact, One Lord's writer had become the drama department's greatest concern.
* * *
The chief producers' meeting room in the upper ranks of the drama department.
Go Young-chan, the most senior chief, wore a deeply satisfied expression after finding unexpectedly excellent submissions.
“Ha, what a waste.”
Getting down to the final ten had been easy.
The drama departments of the nation's three major broadcasters were dens where the people who understood drama best had gathered.
A quick glance was enough to tell whether a work was worthy of that kind of investment.
They didn't know who the writers were, so they judged the scripts alone.
There was no room for personal feelings to affect the evaluation.
That meant these were unquestionably top-tier works based solely on the writing.
On another level, it was perhaps a matter of instinct.
‘Mm. As expected, there aren't any newcomers among the works that survived this long.’
Young-chan was certain that none of the ten remaining scripts had been written by newcomers.
‘There’s experience in the writing. The scene distribution, what the camera can handle, the limits of direction, the budget allocation... And the ones that stand out the most are these.’
Three works caught Young-chan's eye.
[Chase at Dawn]
[The Secret Is Beside You]
[Sword Pact, One Lord]
Young-chan smiled in satisfaction.
‘Chase at Dawn is a crime thriller. The Secret Is Beside You is a medical drama. Proven material. They both fit the budget perfectly. And the last one, Sword Pact, One Lord. This is truly exceptional.’
It was a historical noir.
The genre choice itself was remarkably clever and compelling, but the actual script was even more surprising.
The narrative rose in a clean, steady curve.
What happens next?
It cleverly hid the long-term pull needed to sustain the audience's interest over a season airing twice a week within its immediate entertainment.
The writing itself was also extremely polished.
It was obvious at a glance that the development period needed to turn it into a shooting-ready revised draft would be extremely short.
‘This had to be written by someone who's been making a living off writing for at least twenty years. Who is it? Hwang? Yeon?’
The people Young-chan suspected were major figures in the current industry.
There was another factor as well.
‘The canceled production was a historical drama. We have the most usable props for that one right now.’
Since it had been canceled in the early stages of pre-production, there were historical-drama props that had only been partly made.
Considering the economics, that would earn it major points.
‘Unless something comes along that overcomes that advantage... though, can anything even surpass this level?’
Of course, that was only Young-chan's personal view.
Young-chan was not the type to trust only personal judgment.
Young-chan had become the most senior chief through a combination of ability, charisma, social skills, and the ability to communicate.
Those qualities showed themselves again this time.
“What do you all think?”
“A few caught my eye.”
“There are quite a few outstanding ones.”
Everyone seemed cautious about speaking.
It made sense.
Though they were technically the same rank, the five chiefs had senior-junior relationships.
The more junior they were, the more they had to watch their seniors. Even the seniors had to watch Young-chan.
But could that produce an objective result?
Young-chan grinned.
“Do you know what a conclave is?”
“The papal election?”
“That's right. Do you know how it's conducted?”
“Ah! I do!”
“Go on, Mi-ryeo. You're our youngest. Answer.”
“Don't they lock everyone up and hold secret ballots until they reach a unanimous decision?”
“Correct!”
“Yes! ...Huh?”
Yang Mi-ryeo cheered with a clenched fist, then froze with a jolt.
Every chief except Young-chan did the same.
All eyes creaked toward Young-chan.
Young-chan smiled with great kindness and spoke.
“Lock the meeting room door.”
The broadcasting industry needed results, and results alone.
Reaching the rank of chief meant having enough insight to produce results through one's own unvarnished judgment.
Only by gathering the best efforts of people like that could they produce the work with the best results.
Click!
“Three out of ten. None of you are going home until we have three unanimous choices to put before the department head.”
“Hic...”
The voting from hell began.
Remarkably, it ended with everyone selecting the same three works Young-chan had identified.
It only took about eight hours.
* * *
The department head's office was somewhat tense.
Representing the chief producers, Young-chan reported the three works that would advance to final judging. Tae-jin nodded while reading their synopses.
“You chose well. It was a tight schedule. Good work.”
“Not at all. The submissions were unexpectedly good, so even I was surprised.”
“Is there a work you have your heart set on?”
“I think any of them would work.”
“I'm asking what you think, Chief Go.”
Young-chan swallowed.
Tae-jin's expression was impossible to read.
‘A test.’
It was one of Tae-jin's well-known quirks.
When Tae-jin intended to keep someone close and make use of them for a long time, he often asked questions like this to test their ability.
Should Young-chan be glad to have caught Tae-jin's eye?
Or call it bad luck, since working under that pressure made one's blood run dry?
‘The department head already has a correct answer in mind.’
What could it be?
After turning the thought over and over, Young-chan finally sighed.
“May I give my unvarnished opinion?”
“That's what I want to hear.”
“Then I'll answer frankly.”
Young-chan spoke.
It was an explanation of the work and the reasons for choosing it.
After hearing the answer, Tae-jin's eyebrows rose.
Not many words passed between them.
But one thing was clear.
“You saw it correctly.”
Young-chan's answer had something in common with Tae-jin's own judgment, the judgment of the person known as the script demon.
“Proceed.”
“Yes. This time, I'll keep things under control so that nothing like the Writer Seo incident happens again!”
“We'll see.”
And so, Sword Pact, One Lord passed the final judging.
Afterward, the writer's identity was revealed within the drama department.
Everyone who had expected a seasoned professional was shocked.
Among them, one person's face turned especially red.
Who else could it be?
“...What?”
It was Du-ho, discovering that Jae-kyung, the writer Du-ho had cursed so much, was the writer of Sword Pact, One Lord.
* * *
An email arrived.
When I opened it, it contained the welcome news I had been waiting for.
[This is the WBS Drama Department. We are pleased to inform you that [Sword Pact, One Lord], which you submitted to the contest, has passed the final judging...]
I had passed the final judging.
And they wanted a meeting.
It was the moment I took my first step.
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