July 2026 – Dialogue & Voice Challenge – 40th Anniversary Series
August 1, 2026
July 2026
Dialogue & Voice Challenge Honorees
The following writers were selected for recognition in
Scriptwriters Network’s July 2026 Dialogue & Voice Challenge,
part of our 40 Years • 12 Months • 12 Ways We Give Back celebration.
The challenge invited writers to explore the power of dialogue and voice,
creating characters whose personalities, emotions, relationships, and intentions are revealed
through the way they speak.
Explore each writer’s biography, project description,
and recognized submission below.
🏆 Grand Prize Winner
Nsikakabasi Awak (Awak Nsico)
Project Title: The Pitch
Bio:
Nsikakabasi Awak (Awak Nsico) is a Nigerian Filmmaker and Screenwriter passionate about character-driven stories, visual storytelling, and emotionally grounded human drama. Having worked across Pre-production, Production and Post-production phases, he has now become known for crafting stories that explore human relationships, identity, and the quiet conflicts beneath life.
Project Description:
Submission:
GLASS-WALLED OFFICE, LEKKI – AFTERNOON
A sleek office above the traffic. JOHN AKPAN, 40s, a renowned network producer in a well-pressed senator attire, scrolls through a script on a tablet.
Across from him, DOZIE, late 20s, a screenwriter, sits upright in front of a closed laptop, hands folded. The posture of a man who has rehearsed this meeting in the mirror.
JOHN
This scene here. Page fourteen. The mother finds out her son forged the exam result.
DOZIE
Yes.
JOHN
It’s good writing. Real writing.
DOZIE
Thank you, sir.
JOHN
But nobody is going to watch it.
DOZIE
(carefully)
With respect, I wrote it because I lived a version of it.
JOHN
I don’t doubt that. I’m asking you to consider the eleven million people who will watch
this on a Saturday evening with their own children in the room.
DOZIE
Then let them see themselves in it. Isn’t that the whole point?
JOHN
The point, Dozie, is that they finish the film feeling something they can carry to church
the following morning. Guilt is not that feeling.
DOZIE
Neither is a lie dressed up as a happy ending.
John sets the tablet down. Measured. Not angry. This is a negotiation he’s had before, with better-funded men.
JOHN
Tell me what you actually want from this meeting.
DOZIE
I want you to greenlight the script as written.
JOHN
And I want a film that doesn’t lose me my slot with the network. So permit me, let’s
find where those two things can still shake hands.
DOZIE
There’s no version of this story where the boy doesn’t get caught. That’s the story.
JOHN
Nobody said remove the lie. I said give the mother a scene afterward. Let her forgive
him.
DOZIE
That’s not forgiveness. That’s the audience being let off the hook.
JOHN
(leaning forward)
You know what my father used to say? A story that only wounds and never heals is not
a story, it’s a grudge with dialogue.
DOZIE
And my father used to say the truth doesn’t need your permission to be uncomfortable.
Beat. John almost smiles. He respects the parry, even as he’s losing patience with it.
JOHN
Both our fathers sound like men who never had to meet a budget.
DOZIE
(a small, reluctant laugh)
No. They didn’t.
JOHN
An unproduced script changes nothing.
DOZIE
And a softened one changes even less.
John studies him, genuinely weighing something now, not performing it.
JOHN
Write me the forgiveness scene. Not the version where she absolves him. The version
where she tells him the truth cost her something too, and she’s choosing him anyway,
with her eyes open.
DOZIE
(slowly)
That’s… not what you asked for two minutes ago.
JOHN
Two minutes ago I was talking to a writer who hadn’t convinced me yet.
Dozie opens his laptop. For the first time, he’s not defending the page. He’s already somewhere else, building the new scene in his head.
DOZIE
Give me till Friday.
JOHN
I will give you till Friday. Just give me something I can defend to the network.
They hold each other’s gaze a beat longer than a simple agreement requires. Two men who got what they came for, and neither one all of it.
FADE OUT.
🌟 Honorable Mention
Trinity Davis
Project Title: The Witness
Bio:
Trinity Davis is an award-recognized screenwriter and novelist with more than 30 completed screenplays and three published novels available through Amazon. His work spans historical drama, psychological thriller, horror, comedy, and socially conscious storytelling, often exploring the human consequences hidden inside larger moral questions. He is currently seeking literary representation for his growing body of screen and literary work.
Project Description:
Submission:
The writer’s submission will be made available here with permission.
View full month details
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