Screenwriting is a lonely business, and it helps to have friends who want to write screenplays, friends with whom you can discuss things.
It’s important to find a group of like-minded people who are on the same wavelength, who wanna write screenplays as badly as you do, who aren’t selfish, who support you. If you’re sinking or you’re drowning, it’s nice to have someone else in the boat. — Shane Black
The internet is a wonderful device for linking up those like-minded people wherever they are around the planet. Back in 1998, Francis Ford Coppola established a website for writers, which quickly became the focus of an enthusiastic community. In 2000 he converted the website into something he calls the Zoetrope Virtual Studio.
"The Virtual Studio is a submission destination and collaboration tool for filmmakers—a community where artists can meet, polish their craft, and perhaps get their stories published, their screenplays produced, their music heard by a wide audience."
"Trigger Street Labs provides a platform for exposure and discovery. No matter if you're an aspiring filmmaker or writer, established professional already in the business, or just an enthusiast with an interest in film and story, there is most likely something here for you."
Then, in 2010, Ben Cahan started yet another writer community. This one is called Talentville. Once again, it is a place where you can have other writers critique your screenplay, once you pass their test.
"The method of getting your work noticed is by receiving reviews from the other Residents as well as Industry folks we will get involved as time goes along. That is done via our Review and Rating system. However, just uploading your script does not necessarily mean anyone is going to read it. ... Before you can get your own script reviewed, rated and ultimately ranked, you are going to have to do a bit of work to earn the bucks that you will then spend to have others review your work."
Now, in 2012, Franklin Leonard of The Black List has announced that it will host screenplays by amateurs, right alongside those by respected professionals... for a fee. This is a straight deal. Money for potential exposure to genuine industry professionals who are actively looking for a gem among the mountains of dross. No more loitering while you read other poorly written scripts, and an assurance that the person reading your script actually knows something about the business.
"... anyone who has written a screenplay to pay $25 a month to have their script hosted and indexed as part of our database. For a writer’s $25 a month, we make their script available to our industry professional membership so that they may download it, rate it, and contact writers directly if they so choose. All of these reads are 100% free. ... Writers can also pay an additional $50 per read to have their script read by readers we have hired who have expressed a specific interest in the genre that they are evaluating. "
So, which one is 'best'? I think that depends on your personality, your emotional needs, and what stage you're up to in your screenwriting career. This much I do know: the higher the caliber of the person reading your screenplay, the faster you're going to improve.
You liked The Black List story, right? And you're waiting, but this year's List hasn't been released yet.
While you're waiting, try reading Ken Furer's 2011 Wish List, a compilation of the best unproduced, unwritten screenplays in Hollywood. It's a mini-Master Class in how to write a logline.
One of the exercises my writing group goes through is that of writing loglines for our screenplay ideas. It's not as easy as it sounds.
Have a look at these examples:
A gang of crooked cops plan a major heist that will require them to shoot a fellow officer in order to get away with it.
A human teenager, a vampire, and a zombie must save a town from an alien invasion.
A bachelor who is dumped by his wingman teams up with a sharp-tongued woman he can't stand in order to meet women.
A young man discovers that the undertaker who recently hired him as a driver is actually a hitman for the mafia.
No, these weren't written by my friends. They were taken from The Black List. That's an annual list of Hollywood's most-liked, unproduced screenplays, which is published on the second Friday of December each year. The Black List began in 2004 as a survey, with contributions from 75 film studio and production company executives. In 2009, over 300 executives contributed their opinion.
It's a good exercise to read through the logline summaries available to outsiders on The Black List website, just to get a feel of what it must be like to be a studio executive facing a flood of submissions. And remember, as you raise your eyebrows at the sight of some of them: these are the good ones, the ones Hollywood insiders liked. For every one you see here, try to imagine another hundred that were far, far worse. At the very least, that should encourage you.
Oh, and the next Black List is due out on December 9, 2011. Maybe we'll see you on it...
There's a link below to an interview, which has at the bottom a video clip of Franklin Leonard talking about the job of being a reader in the Hollywood system. Interesting. Meanwhile, here's a clip of Franklin Leonard telling the story of how he came to invent The Black List.
(Aaron Sorkin), 
(David Seidler), 
(Diablo Cody)
(Richard LaGravanese), 
(Liz Meriwether), 
(Kate Angelo), 
(Bert Royal), 
(Dan Fogelman), and 
(Evan Daugherty).