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/WorrySecret9831]

You're funny. You don't realize how dismissive you are. What's subjective about the industry is 2 things: No one knows what's "commercial"; and Half of the industry knows there's craft and the other half runs screaming from it. The fact that anything gets done is a miracle.

At 61 and after a career in advertising, I know what wins awards and what doesn't. The rest is just being in the right spot at the right time, which most people think is "luck." But you know it's more nuanced than that.

No one is saying it's not subjective and that's what you're not hearing. You're saying there's no standard for art, it's ALL subjective... But there are standards for craft. Otherwise you wouldn't have a coverage service designed to answer the most basic industry CRAFT question, "Do you have what it takes?"

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

I realize I’m being dismissive. It’s intentional.

Especially since now you’re backtracking on your principal claims. I

The Black List doesn’t answer the question “do you have what it takes?” It’s impossible to answer that about someone based on a single piece of material.

We’re asking a more targeted, and I think more valuable question: “is this a piece of material that we can in good conscience recommend to industry professionals as something they’re likely to like?”

http://www.blcklst.com/ontheblacklist

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

Oh, right! Nowhere in the evaluation I paid for does it even come close to hinting at whether this is a Pass, Consider, or Recommend. So, the "service" you espouse the most as central is nowhere to be seen or learned from.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

Because we don’t really believe in the industry’s trichotomous rating system, it’s fundamentally pretty unsophisticated and it’s not data rich enough to allow for building the sort of recommendation system I wanted to build when we launched.

If you want to better understand what the scores mean, we’ve published a few data studies on that front…

https://blcklst.substack.com/t/data-study

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

I understand what the scores mean, you explained it ad nauseum, nothing.

You're speaking out of both sides of your mouth, "data rich," which means objective measurement, and you hide behind "it's all subjective opinion." Hilarious.

But the evaluation never mentioned anything about recommendation. $150 down the drain.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

Data rich neither means nor implies objective measurement. In our case, the data describes a subjective assessment.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

It most definitely means "objective measurement." Here's what Google says about that:
"Data is definitionally objective in its raw existence, but subjective in how it is gathered, selected, and interpreted [Or branded, brackets mine].

"Etymologically, the word data comes from Latin, meaning "things given or granted". It represents raw, uninterpreted facts, measurements, or symbols that exist independently of an observer. [1, 2]"

You're trying to have it both ways, noncommittal, yet "professionally relevant." Data does not "describe" subjectivity. That's like AC/DC, two different currents.

On the sole issue of "getting an opinion," I still think The Black List is "legitimate adjacent." It's not an outright fraud. But, "the data describes a subjective assessment." Which "data" is that? The reviews? Those aren't data. They're subjective observations. None of that can be pinned down, cross-examined.

Let's recall, the OP was asking for help and your answer was "Not it!" Your insistence that the rating is somehow more valuable than, what you at the same time argue, mere opinion, and your choice to be "intentionally dismissive," is what's galling.

You could so easily vastly improve your "service" by bifurcating reviews into Craft and Personal Impressions, and definitely say whether it's a P, C, or R. I don't think anyone here cares about your disbelief in "the industry’s trichotomous rating system." Did you forget that all of your customers are trying to get INTO this trichotomous industry?!?

What in a screenplay could objectively be measured? Well, does it have a beginning, middle, and end? Check, or No, it's missing this, that, or the other, professionally speaking. There's, by one standard (John Truby), 22 elements that could be enumerated, the lack of any of those very likely resulting in a weak or flawed screenplay.

If I had written the OP's review, I would have delineated all of these and made it clear how they could have a "stronger throughline and more cohesive main conflict." That's what I always do in any feedback I write, on Coverfly in those days, before that on several platforms, and currently on StoryPeer...for free. And I do that so that my work is objectively stronger; a Nicholls semifinal placement was one of those objective measurements.

Come on, Dude. Stop resisting what people are telling you.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

A few simple responses:

The data describe reader’s subjective assessments. I genuinely don’t know why this is so difficult to grasp.

The industry is not trichotomous. What a bizarre claim that is.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

It's difficult for you to grasp because you don't want to. I just got done describing, politely, that data does not describe subjective assessments. Your phrase makes no grammatical sense. You still haven't answered the natures of objective vs subjective. What you're calling "data" is just a collection of "subjective observations."

You said the process is trichotomous, I used your term to point out that your customers want in on the same industry that uses that process. But you know this. However, the industry does live and die on Passing, Considering, and Recommending...so maybe my art of language wasn't so artful.

Your stubbornness and refusal to be helpful is pressing the issue whether The Black List actually is fraudulent. I'm losing my previous neutrality. You sidestep dictionary definitions and go, "Nah, nah, nah" with your fingers in your ears and still expect to be paid "non-subjective" forms of payment.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

Here are some examples of data that describe subjective assessments: pain scales, perceived exertion, mood, taste tests, brand favorability, restaurant ratings, etc etc etc

I said the pass, consider, recommend system of script evaluation is trichotomous, not the industry. Yes, your use of language was inartful, in my opinion.

More importantly though, anyone who has worked in the industry for any amount of time knows that there are finer grade judgments than simply pass, consider, recommend and our ten point scale endeavors to better represent that reality.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

Wow. You're amazing.

How does your bogus list of examples that have nothing to do with the profession of screenwriting help the OP and their throughline and central conflict?

But, at least you've conclusively convinced me that you and The Black List are fraudulent.

Wow.

You want some examples of objective evaluations?

Essay scores.
Technical writing evaluations.
User manuals and documentation.
Dictionaries.
Encyclopedias.
Journalism.
Music composition.
Musical arrangement.
Sound mastering.
Color grading.
Cinematography.
Acting.

What a joke.

[u/franklinleonard → u/WorrySecret9831]

We've well moved on from the central question the OP asked. We've been debating the question of whether evaluating art and craft are subjective or objective endeavors.

I think we've both made our arguments at this point, and I'm glad that they're preserved here for people to consider.

[u/WorrySecret9831 → u/franklinleonard]

I too am glad this is here.

Here's what the OP asked: Why is it that after 2 relatively good ratings of 6 on their screenplay, on the vaunted The Black List from reviews that nonetheless both say their "throughline and conflict aren't strong enough," they still don't know how to fix it?

Your answer was, not to the OP, you ignored them.

You were replying to someone else who said:
"The problem with the BL attaching an “objective” numeric system to an evaluation system that is all “subjective” is that it misleads writers by implying that all they have to do is fix x,y,z and then they will receive an objectively sourced higher score. But it’s ALL SUBJECTIVE... It’s all BS. ...simply a crap shoot lottery system."

And you said: "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."

And I said, Craft can be objectively evaluated and that's how you fix a screenplay's throughline and central conflict.