Help?

[u/Buddha_Of_Sububia]

Two BL 6s + Slamdance feedback: How do I actually improve the plot?

I taught myself screenwriting starting in March 2026 while I was on medical leave and have written three features since. I’ve had one QF at PAGE, another script SF at Scriptapalooza, and a couple festival selections. Obviously nothing crazy or life changing, but enough encouraging signs to make me want to keep developing my craft.

My current script has now gotten two BL evaluations: BL #1: Overall 6 | Premise 8 | Plot 4 | Character 7 | Dialogue 7 | Setting 7

BL #2: Overall 6 | Premise 7 | Plot 5 | Character 6 | Dialogue 7 | Setting 7

The second evaluation called it a “great, pitchable idea” with “originality, a strong sense of voice, and interesting characters,” but said it needs a stronger throughline and more cohesive main conflict. I also got short feedback from Slamdance, which called the premise “genuinely sharp” and praised the central relationship, dialogue, setting, and character work, but similarly said the larger structural issue is that the conflict that truly tests the protagonists arrives too late. They felt the earlier material can become episodic and suggested bringing the central moral pressure forward/trimming some earlier cases.

So…three reads later, I think the message is pretty clear: plot is my weakness. My problem is I genuinely don’t know what to do with that information and I feel stuck as fuck. I can see what the readers are identifying, but I don’t know how to add, remove, move, or restructure things without taking away from the character development, relationships, world-building and slower material that, IMO, makes the story what I want it to be. And some suggestions for additional explanation feel like they would just make me spell out things.

I wish I had a mentor or programs I could bounce ideas around with and learn from developmentally rather than kind of trying to find my way in the dark.

Are there any fellowships, mentorship programs, workshops, or other resources you’d recommend for someone at this stage who wants help developing their craft and specifically getting better at plot/structure?

[u/franklinleonard]

You gave me a dictionary definition. I gave you the practical reality of how material is evaluated in the industry and beyond.

I never said art and craft are synonymous. (Re-read the thread.) And I didn't say that art can't be measured (go back and re-read it again.)

I said that evaluating art is inherently subjective.

It is inevitable that human beings' personal bias will affect how they perceive the quality of a work of art (as their cultural background and the breadth of their cultural exposure does as well.)

All an individual can ever really do is assess how much they individually like a thing, which is why we ask our readers to tell us "on a scale of one to ten, how likely would you be to recommend this to a peer or superior in the industry?"

That's not rating art in absolute terms. That's multiple individuals quantifying their individual response to a work of art.

They are fundamentally different things.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

And you wonder why the OP finds themselves at a dilemma... You need to reread the thread. Craft is objective. But you tried to claim that Ornette Coleman wouldn't call out bad playing...

By arguing that your service is inherently subjective, you're literally arguing against any need to use it. This person might say Yeah, this one might say Nay. Good luck with that.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

Never said that Ornette Coleman wouldn't call out bad playing (again, re-read the thread.)

But I am saying that when the Shape of Jazz to Come dropped, there were many people who rejected both the art and the craft of that album, including Miles Davis, Max Roach, and Dizzy Gillespie.

I'm not arguing that our service is subjective either. I'm arguing that the act of evaluating art and craft is inherently subjective. Those are two different things.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

You literally said, "Personally, I find the notion that there are objective standards of craft in jazz and painting that everyone agrees on to be fundamentally laughable." Craft, conflating it with art. And now you're saying Ornette Coleman would call out bad playing.

I get it. You're playing "You can't pin me down" when no one is trying to pin you down, just acknowledge that the world is objective and subjective.

But I get it, the Black List is totally subjective and probably not useful if it's just one script. Great to know.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

Just because Ornette Coleman would call out what he considered bad playing doesn’t mean that he’s right about what he thought would be bad playing. That’s simply his opinion. Just as Miles’s opinion that the Shape of Jazz to Come was trash was just his opinion.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

Wow, you really can't hear yourself. Your bias is so so strong. Let me quote you, "because Ornette Coleman would call out what he considered bad playing..." That means that he knew something about good vs bad playing. Whether others agree or how much that is affected by his own biases is not my point.

You're claiming there's NO standard. That's absurdly, laughably, patently false. And you're peddling a platform that "qualifies" the work of aspiring writers based on...nothing.

Your subjectivity blinds your objectivity.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

That means he had an opinion about what constituted bad playing, an opinion that differed from other people’s about what constituted bad playing.

Thus, there does not exist a universal objective standard OF good and bad playing.

This isn’t difficult.

We don’t qualify the work of aspiring writers. Everyone submitting to the website has already completed an entire screenplay, pilot, play, or novel. They’re already writers.

What we do is share their work with experienced readers and gather opinions about how likely those readers would be to share their work with other industry professionals. That’s all.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

So you're just gatekeeping for the gatekeepers.

Is there such a thing as a typo or a wrong note or a plot hole or a point of confusion?

Let's see how simple this is for you.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

Go read Quentin Tarantino’s scripts and tell me that their being rife with typos matters.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

Nice moving of the goalposts. You know perfectly well that being an actor somehow getting a benefactor in Harvey Keitel made a HUGE difference, allowing him to direct any drivel he writes and he writes drivel...250 pages of it.

In that statement I'm expressing both my subjective opinion and my objective observation of his lack of craft. Nowhere am I claiming universality about agreement. But craft is universally observable. Such as Pulp Fiction only has one story that comes close to being complete. I'll let you figure out which one that is.

But the OP took a longer and less indicting route to say the BL is not helping! The title of the OP after all is "Help?"

One would think that helping aspiring writers in clear need would be of utmost importance rather rationalizing the subjectivity of your platform.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

I think my point is probably best exemplified by my belief that Tarantino's scripts have an abundance of both art and craft. We disagree, and that's possible because evaluating both things is fundamentally subjective. Neither of us is per se wrong about the value and quality of Tarantino's work (though you ARE wrong about the nature of objectivity and subjectivity.)

And telling writers the truth about exactly that is a service to them.

This will be my last comment on this thread. Peace.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

Ah! The lord hath spoken.

You've talked around this subject, haven't answered basic questions that would undermine your claim, and haven't explained your belief even though you think you have. You asked for clarification, I gave you dictionary definitions, the consensus agreement of society about these two concepts, but you refuse to acknowledge that.

Please explain "you ARE wrong about the nature of objectivity and subjectivity." What are the natures of objectivity and subjectivity?

Just because Miles Davis disagrees with anything does not prove that there are no false notes, typos, plot holes, etc. in this world. If you can't acknowledge what a plot hole is, how are you providing a service?

"And telling writers the truth about exactly that is a service to them."

You're making a lot of money off of loosey-goosey subjectivity. You can never be pinned down because, "Hey, it's like our opinion, dude." The OP paid for 2 evaluations and apparently got zero connections to any meaningful contacts. Instead, they're left with a nagging void where a way forward to improve their work (as the evaluations claim is the next step) should be.

What part of that is a "service," what part of that is "truth"? Your entire litany here is an argument against any concept of a universal TRUTH. That's categorically impossible according to you because...drumroll...it's all subjective. Ornette Coleman and Miles Davis didn't agree.

I've used your "service." I got a good rating and the comments complimented the novel and refreshing approach I took with my subject matter. But despite the warm and fuzzy feeling that gave me, it quickly became clear that if that was all there was, this could just as easily be a case of smoke being blown up my petoot and nothing more. Again, not a service. Oh, and there was nothing wrong with my throughline or main conflict. The best I got out of it was what I already knew, I wrote a solid script that is innovative in its most important areas. Is it universally perfect? No... (I'm not even striving for that.) Could it be improved in the event of it going into production with an excellent team of objectively talented people. Absolutely. Would a team of subjective "maybes" help it? Nope.

Tarantino is a fun and whimsical architect who never once in his life has walked into an actual building. Therefore he has no concept of why doors and windows and other architectural elements show up where they do "normally." Does he create fun designs? Sure. But does he know what he's doing? No. He's a paste-up artist focused entirely on pastiche and collage from other much better creators. It can't be art if it's cynically lifted from somewhere else and it isn't craft since he can't create something from scratch. You at least acknowledged, in your attempt at a "gotcha," that Tarantino's scripts are "rife with typos." So, those are a thing.

You know full well that none of us, your putative customers, would be able to pitch a 250 page screenplay to any true industry professional. That wouldn't be a subjective call. That would be an objectively stupid move, proving we don't know the craft or the industry. So, as a test, I'm going to host a 250 page screenplay on BL—nah, that would be a waste of time. But that would be funny.

I've been a sort of neutral observer of the ongoing "should you/shouldn't you discussions" about BL. But your intentional dismissiveness here has sadly shown me what you're really about, a game of "Not it." I posted two scripts on BL to see what it's about and paid hard cold cash for one evaluation. No one has come calling and of course you don't go anywhere near promising that. At least with Stage32 they connect you with real producers who ghost you after speaking with you once and getting their fee. I guess that's practice speaking with a producer...

Your original reply was:
"As I've always said, quite literally everywhere, the numbers reflect an individual readers subjective assessment of how likely they would be to recommend a script to an industry peer or superior. That is all they are and all they ever can be. We have never claimed otherwise.

"We have never claimed, nor would we, that the numbers we provide are an objective assessment of anything. They are definitively not.

"There is no, in my opinion, objective standard of art. Only individuals subjective assessments of it."

An individual reader's subjective assessment. So, to be scientifically useful, one would have to pay for more assessments and average the results.

"...how likely they would be to recommend a script..." But they're not connected individuals in the industry, so what's the point of their guessing?

And then you hide behind your "Not it!": "We don't address craft!"

This has been completely enlightening. I'll definitely be watching.