Virginia Youngren
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Where do you live (City, State, or Country)?
 I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA where I’m both a writer and a clinical psychologist.
 
Your script stood out among hundreds of others. What was the inspiration for your story and why did you write a script instead of a short story or a novel?
Fifteen years ago, widowed and vulnerable,  I paid for an apartment advertised online. The place looked so inviting in the photos! The landlord was so convincing on the phone. Moving day came, I drove up—and learned that the ad was fake! The fraudsters took money I couldn’t spare, made an utter fool of me, and left me scrambling for a place to live.
 I wanted to fight back! I joined the Assoc’n of Certified Fraud Examiners, and I’ve been writing screenplays about domestic fraud ever since. Fraud involves a lonely, silent, shameful human interaction. The victim is usually vulnerable and naively hopeful,  while the successful fraudster is slick, persuasive, and ruthless. A movie can make this tangled human experience come alive like no other medium can.
 
How long did it take you to write your script...and what is your writing process? Do you outline...use index cards...white board...or just start with FADE IN?
 As a long-time student of screenwriting, I know from my mentors that I need to start with a logline, write an outline, and systematically deepen the characters and their conflict. But as a psychoanalyst I love to free associate and throw spaghetti at the blank screen. On this particular project I spent 8 months writing, rewriting, and sorting through feedback.
 
What is your ultimate ambition as a writer?
 Screenwriting gives me the best of my worlds: delving into human psychology and writing. I can’t think of anything more rewarding than writing about human nature.
 

Which film or television writers inspire you? Why?
 Alfred Hitchcock,  the Coen Brothers, Claude Chabrol. I can’t forget their stories. Well-told and deliciously dark.
 

What’s your all-time favorite movie or television show?
Better Call Saul
 

What advice do you have for writers hoping to win a contest or place as a finalist as you have?
 Keep your day job so you can write without getting desperate.
 
 What else are you working on that the world needs to know about?
 LAST-MINUTE WIFE, the story of a grown daughter who has to go head to head with her father’s second wife, met and impetuously married on a cruise, quickly widowed, and now after the family’s money.

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