Akiva Goldsman

Spent years writing short fiction without any success, sending dozens of stories through the mail to publishers, only to receive rejection letters in return. At age 28, he decided to take Robert McKee's story structure course, which led him to write his first screenplay. The very first feature film script he wrote, was a script called "Indian Summer". After years of failure as a short fiction writer, Goldsman managed to break through as a screenwriter on the first time out. His script for "Indian Summer" would land him an agent in Hollywood, and would eventually sell to Morgan Creek in January 1991, for $325,000. The script would get produced under the new title Silent Fall (1994).

Fairy tales don't feel like fairy tales to the people that live them. Cinderella herself was having a pretty terrible time.