The Contest (2)
Unlike I remembered, the open call for submissions had suddenly turned public.
What had changed?
When I traced the variables, I found that I was the only one. What did I do to make this change happen?
I tried retracing my steps after the regression, but there wasn’t much that stood out.
That didn’t mean I’d had no contact with the industry, though.
Big changes or small, my actions had probably rippled through the world in a hundred little places, and this was the butterfly effect finally showing its face.
I kept thinking about it for a while, then gave up.
Trying to understand every last thing like some paranoid nutcase wasn’t realistic.
Panicking was inefficient.
Either way, what I had to do didn’t change.
I checked the guidelines.
The submission period was twenty-five days.
The judging period, forty.
For a contest, that was tight.
The required script length was at least four episodes, and the proposal and synopsis had to be finished within three weeks.
Still, the intent seemed honest.
They wanted scripts that were already more or less prepared, or at least could be prepared in that short a time.
Anyone with even a little brain would understand.
This was a competition held to find firefighters.
It also meant there might be situations where a script was written in a desperate rush, episode by episode.
And one more thing: it was also a way to pressure production companies into releasing the better scripts they’d been hoarding.
So how ready was I?
Once I got to that part, well...
I only need to write one more episode.
After the regression, I’d spent almost all my spare time writing the script.
I wasn’t thinking it through from scratch each time; this was a script I’d already worked and reworked in my last life, after that drama fell apart, polishing it in my head until the day I died. That was why I could write this fast.
And four episodes was the perfect stopping point.
The stage where the protagonist’s faction is just beginning to rise.
It was the point where Yeong-ho, dropped into Joseon, began taking control of the surrounding territory alongside the heroine, a tavern owner still rough around the edges.
It was also when the supporting cast started thickening the protagonist’s side, the action began to stand out, and the genre flavor sharpened to its fullest.
And then there was one more thing.
“The beast is trying to imitate a righteous hero.”
The protagonist’s arch-enemy.
This was the stretch where Jang Bung-ik, infamous as a Geomgye hunter during the reign of King Yeongjo and the main figure who would later rise to Minister of Finance, began to establish himself as a true opposing force.
All I had to do was write.
So I opened the word processor.
My fingers moved quickly.
“You know how to catch dogs that bark like mongrels? Men like me rule by hierarchy. That’s how this world works.”
The words poured out, filling the blank pages.
I typed like a man possessed for days and nights, then revised, stitched the pages together, and organized the synopsis and proposal as well.
A week after the announcement went up—
Send.
I sent my manuscript to WBS.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Darling, I heard you opened a contest?”
At the dining table of a home in an apartment complex in Sangam-dong, a woman asked the question.
She gave off a far more dazzling air than any ordinary housewife should have. Ju Yeongwol, the pinnacle of Korean actresses, an icon who had once defined an era. And she was also Seonghun’s mother and Taejin’s wife.
Taejin answered, “We had a hole in the schedule, and there wasn’t a script we could slot in.”
“Still, doesn’t a contest take too much work?”
“We have to do something. It’s a production with a pretty hefty budget.”
“That’s the only reason?”
Yeongwol smiled brightly, the kind of smile that made her look as though her features had been carved into smooth, elegant curves. People had once whispered that she must be a gumiho, a fox spirit, because of how sharply and cleanly her face seemed to cut through the air.
“You said you looked at your son Seonghun’s friend’s script recently, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Aren’t you thinking about that one?”
Taejin didn’t answer.
His silence was usually as good as yes.
“So I was right? Then why not just have taken it straight from the start? You do like making things complicated.”
“I’ve got friction with Director Jo. It doesn’t look good if I just shove someone in through the back door.”
“Ah, that thing our Seonghun got tangled up in? So that’s why you made it blind? Corporate politics are rough.”
“Even if that weren’t the case, I still need other people’s opinions.”
“You mean you’re going to put it up on the main list and then show it to the underlings?”
“No, I’m not taking part in the preliminaries.”
Yeongwol’s eyes widened in surprise.
“What if it gets dropped?”
“Then that’s too bad. It means my eye for scripts has gone dull.”
The answer was plain, but at the same time absurd.
Especially considering who was saying it.
Even though he was called a broadcasting station director now, there had once been a time when he was just a rookie employee with no one behind him.
From rookie AD to EP, and through every promotion in between, the scripts he had rescued had become monster hits more times than anyone could count.
With nothing but his record in the drama division, he had already become a legend. That was Taejin.
Which made Yeongwol curious too.
Just what kind of script did he bring?
The college junior her son had bragged about every chance he got. Until now, Jaekyung had meant little more to Yeongwol than that.
But maybe that was about to change.
A script that had satisfied that demon of a man?
“And if it doesn’t shine in the preliminaries and gets knocked out?”
“Then it had bad luck. We don’t need something like that.”
“Pfft!”
That made sense.
In broadcasting, success was ultimately seventy percent luck and thirty percent skill.
No matter how overwhelming your talent, you couldn’t beat someone the heavens were backing.
But one thing was certain.
When someone possessed both luck and skill, they were called a star writer.
Their influence was strong enough to summon a broadcasting station director for a private meeting.
Why?
Because they were the kind of people who made that much money for the station.
If that script reached the final round and was chosen...
Well, then things get interesting.
Maybe, for once, a ripple would spread through a stagnant pond.
Yeongwol let the thought stop there, then smiled faintly.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
If anyone asked the drama division employees how the last few weeks had gone, they’d all give the same answer.
“I wrote ten resignation letters.”
The sudden public blind contest was one of the worst crises they’d ever faced in their PD careers.
They’d hoped the short deadline and large required volume would keep participation low, but reality had betrayed them in style.
The total number of submissions was exactly 837.
It felt like every aspiring drama writer in the country, along with every established writer sitting on an unpublished script, had come running.
The physical burden of judging them was atrocious.
Everyone read scripts themselves into the grave.
The only mercy was that there was a clear standard.
More than half were rejected without even getting through five pages.
“Cut the low-budget genres. Cut the rom-coms too.”
The most common submissions, romantic comedies and sitcoms, were all tossed unless the writing was truly on a level that couldn’t be ignored.
That was because the production budget allotted to this slot was quite high.
Next went every script that belonged to a genre already sitting in the warehouse as a shelved script.
Naturally, the reason was that they simply weren’t good enough.
After all that careful culling, only fifty works had even made it to the stage where someone read a whole episode straight through.
And from there, it was the real thing: producers with no immediate schedule of their own were now reading more intently, thinking that the winning script might become their project.
Jo Duho was one of those producers.
“Now this is a script. Huh? There’s a depth to it those bratty little writers with no manners and no life under their belts just can’t pull off! Ah? If I pick this up, I could make the biggest title of the year right now... Kyaa, this is real art!”
The people around him all grimaced.
It had already been more than a month since Duho had gotten burned bragging about finding a great script writer.
Ever since then, he hadn’t gone a single day without cursing that rookie writer. At this point, the rest of the department had stopped finding the writer ridiculous and started finding Duho unbearable.
There he goes again.
That was the look on everyone’s faces, though at the same time they all silently agreed with his praise of Sword-Bound Gentleman.
It was artistic.
It was astonishing.
Those weren’t really the right words for it.
It was simply ruthlessly commercial.
Every scene, every line, every bit of setup was constructed with absolute commercial instinct, the kind of writing that made the structure of the hits practically visible to anyone who could handle a camera.
And Duho had fallen hard for it.
“This one has to go with me! Do you have any idea how hot my hand is right now?”
Who wouldn’t know that was a shot fired at the CPs?
If Sword-Bound Gentleman won in the final selection, everyone knew how badly Duho would foam at the mouth if he wasn’t the producing PD.
A PD who had already delivered two consecutive hits held immense power.
Like most things in life, everyone decided to avoid this one because it was a pain in the ass.
Of course, whether Sword-Bound Gentleman won or not was an upper-level decision.
Still, everyone sensed the same thing.
“It’s too overwhelming, isn’t it?”
“As if that were the only reason. More than anything, it fits the current situation way too well.”
Everyone here had instinct from the field.
No one predicted an upset, and instead they were all curious about one thing.
“But seriously, who wrote this?”
The identity of the writer was the single hottest topic in the drama division.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Up in the drama division, in the CP meeting room, the most senior chief producer, Go Yeongchan, wore a thoroughly pleased expression after digging up several unexpectedly excellent scripts.
“Ha, this is a shame.”
It had been easy until the first ten were selected.
After all, the drama division at one of the three major broadcasters was a battlefield where the best drama handlers in the country were gathered.
Just by looking at the rough outline, you could tell whether something was worth pouring that kind of money into.
He didn’t know the writers, so he judged purely from the scripts themselves.
Which meant there was no room for personal bias to sneak in.
It was a seal of approval based on the writing alone.
And in a different sense, maybe it was an instinctive thing.
Hmm. As expected, there isn’t a single rookie among the scripts that survived this far.
He was certain there wasn’t a rookie among the remaining ten.
The writing has seasoning. It takes scene allocation, camera availability, directorial limits, and budget distribution into account... and the one that really stands out is this.
Three titles caught Yeongchan’s eye.
Chasing the Dawn
Beside You, Secrets
Sword-Bound Gentleman
Yeongchan’s smile deepened with satisfaction.
Chasing the Dawn is a crime thriller, Beside You, Secrets is medical. Both are proven sources, and they fit the budget perfectly. And then there’s the last one, Sword-Bound Gentleman. Now this is the real deal.
It was a historical noir.
Right from the choice of genre, it was extremely clever and seductive, and when he actually opened the script, the surprise only grew.
The narrative moved with a beautifully clean upward curve.
So what happened next?
It was the kind of work that cleverly hid long-term momentum between the quick bursts of interest that kept viewers hooked twice a week for an entire quarter.
On top of that, the script itself was exceptionally polished.
He could see at a glance that the process of turning it into a shootable revised draft would be incredibly short.
Whoever wrote this has been eating scripts for at least twenty years. Who is it? Someone from the Hwang family? The Yeon family?
The names he suspected were all big shots in the current industry.
And even setting that aside...
The project that got shelved was a historical drama. We already have the most usable props available.
Because the original production had collapsed during the early pre-production stage, they already had half-finished historical props lying around.
If he thought about economics, that alone gave the script a major boost.
Unless something better came along that overcame all those conditions... but honestly, I’m not even sure something above this level exists.
Of course, that was only his own judgment.
Yeongchan wasn’t the sort of man who trusted only his own instincts.
The reason he had reached the top chief producer position was that he had charisma, social skill, and communication ability to match his talent.
That side of him showed again this time, too.
“What do you all think?”
“There are a few that really catch the eye.”
“And a couple that are especially outstanding.”
Everyone spoke with caution.
That made sense.
Although their titles were the same, all five chiefs in this room were tied together by seniority and juniority.
The younger ones had no choice but to watch the seniors’ expressions, and the seniors, in turn, had no choice but to watch Yeongchan’s.
But how could they get an objective result that way?
Yeongchan grinned.
“You know what a conclave is?”
“The election of a pope?”
“Right. And do you know how that happens?”
“Ah! I know!”
“Good, our youngest, Miryeo. Go ahead.”
“They lock everyone in until there’s a unanimous result, and then they vote anonymously!”
“Correct!”
“Yes! ...Huh?”
Yang Miro clenched her fist and cheered, only to freeze with a snap.
So did every other chief except Yeongchan.
Creak, creak—their gazes turned toward him.
Yeongchan smiled with saintly warmth and said, “Lock the conference room door.”
What broadcasting needed was results, nothing more.
And the reason someone rose to chief producer was that they had enough insight to justify that power by their own judgment alone.
Only when you gathered the best from those people could you produce the most successful work.
Click.
“Exactly three out of ten. You’re not getting out of this room until we’ve got three unanimous picks to take to the director.”
“Hic...”
The infernal vote began.
And in the end, surprisingly, it finished with everyone choosing the same three Yeongchan had pointed to.
It took about eight hours.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The director’s office was tense.
Representing the chief producers, Yeongchan reported the three works chosen for the final round to Taejin, and Taejin nodded as he looked over their synopses.
“Good selection. It was a rushed schedule; you did well.”
“Not at all! Honestly, I was surprised myself by how good the submissions turned out.”
“Is there one you’ve got your eye on?”
“I think any of them would work.”
“I asked for your opinion, Chief Go.”
Yeongchan swallowed hard.
Taejin’s face was utterly unreadable.
This is a test.
That was one of Taejin’s well-known quirks.
When there was someone he thought might be useful for a long time and at close range, he often asked questions like this to test their ability.
Should he be glad Taejin had noticed him?
Or should he call it bad luck, since it meant working under that skin-prickling pressure?
The director already has the correct answer in mind.
What on earth was it?
With his thoughts spinning, Yeongchan finally let out a breath.
“Is my own judgment enough?”
“That’s what I want to hear.”
“Then I’ll answer honestly.”
Yeongchan opened his mouth.
He spoke about the works and why he had chosen them.
After listening, Taejin lifted his brows slightly.
They didn’t exchange many words.
But one thing was clear.
“You saw it properly.”
Yeongchan’s answer was aligned with Taejin’s own, the answer of a man known as a script fiend.
“Proceed.”
“Yes, sir. This time I’ll make sure nothing happens like with Writer Seo!”
“We’ll see.”
And that was how Sword-Bound Gentleman passed the final round.
What happened after that was this:
The writer’s identity was made public inside the drama division.
Everyone had expected the writer to be a seasoned professional, and they were stunned.
Among them, one man’s face turned a shade of red so vivid it practically burned.
Who else would that be?
...What?
It was Duho, upon learning that the Jaekyung he had been cursing was the writer of Sword-Bound Gentleman.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
An email arrived.
When I opened it, it was the good news I’d been waiting for.
[This is WBS Drama Division. We are pleased to inform you that your submission, , has passed the final round...]
Final-round acceptance.
And a request for a meeting.
It was the moment I took my first step.