When Jeff Williams won the 2024 Final Draft Big Break Action/Adventure category with his script ‘Deafblind’, a whole new world of possibilities opened up. That may sound like exactly what you’d expect to happen after winning a major contest, but at 67, when many are slowing down, Williams is just getting on the horse. He’s now holding on tight for the bucking-bronco ride of getting a movie made.
‘Deafblind’ is a Western set in 1868, and the story follows a young woman who’s both deaf and blind. When her sister is kidnapped by a ruthless killer, she’s forced to navigate the wilderness on horseback, with only her instincts and her dog, to save her. It’s a concept that immediately raises the dramatic question: How can someone who cannot see nor hear survive rescuing someone in such an unforgiving environment? Williams, himself, was unsure if it would work.
“I entered it in two contests, just to kind of gauge if I was insane or not with this concept,” he says. “The challenge, as you can imagine, was trying to make this realistic and believable. That something like this could actually take place.”
The premise hinges on tension between the limits of not being able to see or hear versus a strong survival instinct. The protagonist is not portrayed as fragile, but as fiercely self-reliant. She’s a woman who, despite her disabilities, has learned to survive in the harsh terrain of the North Carolina mountains.
That balance, between authenticity and life or death stakes, is where the script lives or dies. This script is alive like wildfire.
The Final Draft Big Break win not only validated the concept for the script, it gave producer Jason Dubin of Perry Street Pictures, the confidence to option the screenplay.
Dubin had already responded positively to the material, but like many industry professionals, he was watching closely to see how it performed in a competitive, professional arena.
“He kept asking me, ‘Have you heard yet? How’s it doing in the competition?’” Williams says. “And I would tell him it’s in the quarterfinals, the semifinals. And then it won.”
The win also proved that Williams’s commitment to keep writing is paying off.
Persistence is the key
By day, Williams is a successful architect, living in North Carolina. “I am the poster child for perseverance with screenwriting,” he says. Though forging a career as an architect seemed like the pragmatic thing to do, he says he’s absolutely loved movies his whole life. But it wasn’t until 2007 that he actually read a screenplay for the first time.
“Just by happenstance, I read the screenplay for the movie Collateral, and I fell in love with this way of writing.”
He says he tried writing novels in the past, but it just wasn’t for him. Somehow, screenplays felt more accessible because they were similar to a blueprint, something he knew a lot about being an architect.
“Reading the screenplay tapped into sketching for me and designing a building. It's the same muscles. You’re taking something three-dimensional and putting it in two dimensions on paper,” he says.
In architecture, that means envisioning a beautiful building in your mind, but then mapping it out in flat drawings that a contractor can use to build something out of steel and wood. Screenwriting operates the same way because a script is not the finished product.
“The saying that a screenplay is a blueprint for a movie is very accurate.”
He says that from there, the director becomes the builder, the one responsible for shaping those words into a living, breathing world.
“It’s their job to take what’s on paper and expand it to that three-dimensional visual medium. Actors, lighting, music, camera, it’s overwhelming.”
That understanding of structure, how something is built and supported, helped Williams approach crafting a story.
“The structural aspect, the three acts, the beats you have to hit, that’s what attracted me,” he says. “It’s very similar to architecture.”
Just as a building requires a sound framework before aesthetic choices are made, a screenplay depends on the integrity of the story.
“You have to know the nuts and bolts,” he says. “What makes it stand up.”
The importance of screenwriting contests
Williams is a veteran of the screenwriting contest circuit. His earlier screenplay ‘Pure’, a sports drama set in the world of professional golf, won both the Nicholl Fellowship and the Austin Film Festival in 2009. But his approach to competitions has evolved since then.
For Williams, contests are effective tools for someone outside the Hollywood landscape. “They gauge how well you’re doing and if an idea’s worth pursuing.”
He says that competitions offer something like a consensus. If a script advances through multiple rounds it’s a signal that a script isn’t just resonating with one person, it’s working across multiple readers.
In Williams’ case, it helped move a producer from interest to action and positioned the project for its next step: Attaching an A-list director and going out to actresses.
“After starting this in 2009, something may actually get made,” he says. “I don’t give up.”
That persistence is central to his advice for emerging writers, especially those coming from outside of Hollywood.
“Find a community. Read scripts. Write a lot of bad ones,” he says. “That’s how you learn.”
Final Draft’s 2026 Big Break Screenwriting Competition is now open for entries.