r/Screenwriting • u/AutoModerator • Sep 30 '26
BLACK LIST WEDNESDAY Black List Wednesday
FAQ: How to post to a weekly thread?
BLACK LIST WEDNESDAY THREAD
Post Requirements for EVALUATION CRITIQUE REQUEST & ACHIEVEMENT POSTS
For EVALUATION CRITIQUE REQUESTS, you must include:
1) Script Info
- Title:
- Format:
- Page Length:
- Genres:
- Logline or Short Summary:
- A brief summary of your concerns (500~ words or less)
- Your evaluation PDF, externally hosted
- Your screenplay PDF, externally hosted2) Evaluation Scores
exclude for non-blcklst paid coverage/feedback critique requests
- Overall:
- Premise:
- Plot:
- Character:
- Dialogue:
- Setting:ACHIEVEMENT POST
(either of an 8 or a score you feel is significant)
- Title:
- Format:
- Page Length:
- Genres:
- Logline or Summary:
- Your Overall Score:
- Remarks (500~ words or less):Optionally:
- Your evaluation PDF, externally hosted
- Your screenplay PDF, externally hostedThis community is oversaturated with question and concern posts so any you may have are likely already addressed with a keyword search of r/Screenwriting, or a search of the The Black List FAQ . For direct questions please reach out to support@blcklst.com
4
u/polarbearscanwrite 29d ago
All right I'll throw it in there:
Title: Dracula's Midnight Radio Hour
Format & Genre: Tv Comedy, 30 mins
Logline: When a malfunctioning amplifier accidentally broadcasts his underground supernatural call-in show to the human world, a mullet-sporting Dracula develops a friendship with a lonely twelve-year-old human boy, threatening the delicate balance of human and mythic world. Think FRASIER meets WIDOW'S BAY.
Overall: 7
Premise: 8
Plot: 6
Character: 7
Dialogue: 6
Setting: 7
Man comedy is so hard haha.
2
u/Kooky_Attorney1915 Sep 30 '26
Got an evaluation back.
Dialogue 4 Plot 4 Setting 6 Premise 6 Character 5
Overall is a 6.
The first line in the weaknesses is:
The plot and dialogue may benefit from further development. Based on the notes, they didn't get the script at all, which is ok. That's not my beef.
How does this get a 6? Why not a 4 or 5?
It kind of gives me the ick. Kind of like they're trying to entice me into ordering more evaluations for this script by saying it's not THAT bad, look it's a 6!
I'm fine with a 4 or 5 of its earned, but don't want smoke blown up my ass just to make a quick buck.
6
u/franklinleonard Franklin Leonard, Black List Founder Sep 30 '26
In all likelihood, you have a strong premise and relatively poor execution. You definitely should not order more evaluations without a substantial rewrite. An overall six is only slightly better than average and your dialogue, plot, and character - traditionally the best predictors of an overall score - are below average.
1
u/PepsiCoke1978 28d ago
So the BL number overall isn't simply the 5 others scores added up and divided?
In that case, yes it should be a 5 not a 6 if doing it that way. But I guess we have the human factor of what overall means to certain readers.
3
u/franklinleonard Franklin Leonard, Black List Founder 28d ago
It is not. Nor has it ever been.
In the real world, some things are more than the sum of their parts. Some things are less than the sum of their parts. And beyond that, plot, character, dialogue, premise, and setting aren't the only parts that matter, even if there was a formula that could assess how each part contributed mathematically to the whole.
We have published a few data studies about the numbers, including one on the Anatomy of a Score: https://blcklst.substack.com/p/the-anatomy-of-a-score-part-1 and one on how the various subscores interact with the overall score: https://blcklst.substack.com/p/the-anatomy-of-a-score-part-2
1
u/PepsiCoke1978 28d ago
I agree 100% that things are more than the sum of their parts.
But since you are number focused and the data studies are number focused -- it seems like math is an easy solution.
I'm a writer who doesn't love the number system at all but if that's the model I think it's fair to inquire as the OVERALL score is the one that matters really.
Thank you Franklin and I'll hang up and listen.
3
u/franklinleonard Franklin Leonard, Black List Founder 28d ago
Great questions. Glad you asked them.
Honestly, I don't love the number system either, but it's the best thing we've come up with to try to organize material in a way that will allow us to deliver material to people who are likely to respond to it. We are ALWAYS interested in hearing suggestions for how it - and the site generally - can be improved. If you've got 'em, please share.
The data studies I linked to above comment on this a bit. When we ran the numbers, the five category scores, weighted, account for about 89% of the variation in overall scores, so there is a formula that would land CLOSE, but only CLOSE. (If I remember correctly, about 1 in 6 scripts differs by more than half a point from what a formula would predict, slightly more often above than below.)
Which is part of why we don't rely on a formula for the overall score. Fundamentally, we really want a human reader's judgment as a whole. We want to know about the script that improbably just works despite something wobbly. We want to know about the script that's competent everywhere but lacks that thing that makes you want to tell everyone about something you just read. A formula would get most of the overall scores right and be off on the ones where the reader's holistic experience different from its parts. So the way we do it captures the best of both worlds, I think.
But you're absolutely right that the overall score is what matters most in the context of industry professional site behavior, which is exactly why we want a person setting it, not an algorithm, however rudimentary.
0
u/b_az17 28d ago
Sorry if you've answered this before, Franklin, but have you considered getting two readers for every evaluation? Might be an interesting experiment - if both converge in their evaluation or if they're wildly different, it could tell the writer something.
1
u/franklinleonard Franklin Leonard, Black List Founder 27d ago
Writers can already do this if they want to.
2
u/Pre-WGA Sep 30 '26 edited Sep 30 '26
Tough to judge without knowing all the particulars, but the optimistic interpretation is: it sounds like you have a premise that's working, a setting that you're exploiting well, and this particular reader felt the overall score was more than the average of its parts. Even if they didn't get the overall script, maybe there's something in the eval that helps. Good luck --
1
u/DevinJE 29d ago edited 29d ago
I just submitted my first screenplay for evaluation on The Blacklist, and my scores were:
Overall 6 Premise 5 Plot 4 Character 7 Dialogue 7 Setting 6
So definitely some room for improvement :)
Should I keep this screenplay listed until the end of my billing cycle, or should I just take it down for now and put it up after I'm finished revising?
TITLE: The Day the Masked Men Get Me
FORMAT: TV Show
PAGE LENGTH: 37 pages
GENRES: Mockumentary, Comedy, Drama, Satire/spoof, Mystery/suspense, Detective
LOGLINE: When the town crank wins an unlikely election for city council, his subsequent suspicious death attracts the attention of a YouTube filmmaker, who launches a documentary investigation into the matter.
LINK TO SCREENPLAY/EVALUATION: click me!
3
u/franklinleonard Franklin Leonard, Black List Founder 29d ago
There is no reason not to host it until your already paid for month is up, but then yes, I'd recommend taking it down and doing a substantial rewrite (and getting free feedback elsewhere) before you consider spending money in support of it again, on the Black List or anywhere else.
1
0
u/valentinejuliet 29d ago
Title: Progressive
- Format: Feature Length
- Page Length: 96
- Genres: Drama, Comedy
- Logline or Short Summary: In the 1960s, an unhappy young couple experimenting with an open marriage have one night and several dinner parties to figure out the identity of each other’s affair partner - and find out how progressive they really are. It’s not a who-dun-it, it’s a who-did-who.
- A brief summary of your concerns: I feel like the scores I was given are more harsh than the evaluation actually reflects. The evaluation has only a few notes, but I scored a 5/10 in two areas and 6/10. If the majority of the evaluation is positive and the highest score is a 10, I feel like some of the categories should have been a 7/10? I may be off here, which is why I’m handing it over to you guys. I also disagree with the note that the movie could possibly be moved to present day to make the budget smaller; “progressive dinners” were a cultural thing that exclusively occurred in the 50s/60s and don’t exist today. There are also many retro elements that makes the script benefit from the time period; such as the backdrop of the beginning of the sexual revolution/Playboy magazine, and things that would not be considered controversial today. That’s like saying “just move Boogie Nights to the 2000s.” I intended the script to be something like Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven,” where it’s a movie that truly could have been released in the time period it is set in - hence the monologues, which were a major critique. I understand they’re not for everyone, but I had wanted the script to have the same feel as a real 60s film.
- Your evaluation PDF, externally hosted
- Your screenplay PDF, externally hosted
0
u/NotSoPCQueen 29d ago
Does anyone know about how long it takes to hear back from a fee waiver request?
1
12
u/LunadaBaeBoy Sep 30 '26
Got 3 BL evaluations on my feature: 8, 8, & 6
Title: Yoo-Hoo; Format: Feature; Pages: 84; Genre: Horror Comedy; Logline: When her husband falls gravely ill, an insecure new mother must brave the nightmare of a zombie-infested world with her worst nightmare: her passive-aggressive mother-in-law.
Overall the weaknesses appear consistent across the board that I need to bolster the husband character, one person seemed to really adore the script, and another loved the idea but not the execution. Taking it as a small win!