The story behind ScriptDoctor
I Built This Because Screenwriting Is Lonely
I'm a screenwriter. Not a famous one — not yet, anyway. I've won prizes in screenwriting competitions, placed in the top rankings, received recognition from people whose opinions I respect. But I've never taken first place. I've never sold a screenplay.
If you write, you know the feeling. You finish a draft, and then — silence. You send it out and wait. Days. Weeks. When feedback finally arrives, it's contradictory. One judge loves your protagonist. Another thinks she's flat. One reader praises the pacing. The next one calls it slow.
This happened to me in competition after competition. I'd get a “strong CONSIDER” from one jury member and a “PASS” from another — for the same script. Eventually I realized the problem: human readers bring their genre preferences, their mood, their personal taste. That's not a flaw; it's human nature. But it meant I could never tell whether an issue was real or just one person's opinion.
I wanted something different. Not another set of subjective notes — I wanted a structural diagnosis. Does the midpoint land? Is the protagonist's arc clear? Are there pacing dead zones? These aren't matters of taste. They're craft.
So I built ScriptDoctor. It evaluates screenplays against a 60-point industry checklist — the same structural criteria that real coverage readers use at studios and competitions. No genre bias. No mood. Just structure, plot, and character craft, with specific page numbers for every note.
When I ran my own scripts through it, I was surprised. The feedback was better than what I'd gotten from most human readers — not because it was nicer, but because it was consistent and specific. It pointed to exact pages. It didn't contradict itself. And it focused on the things that actually matter when a studio reader picks up your script: Does the structure hold? Does the story move? Do the characters earn their arcs?
Since I started using it, my screenplays have gotten measurably better. My competition scores went up. And right now, I'm in conversations with a producer about one of my projects — the first time that's happened.
I'm sharing this tool because screenwriting shouldn't be this lonely. You shouldn't have to spend $200 on human coverage just to find out your second act sags. You should be able to check your structure in 3 minutes, fix the real problems, and then — when your script is actually ready — invest in human eyes.
That's what ScriptDoctor is for. It's the tool I wished I'd had when I started. I hope it helps you the way it helped me.
— The screenwriter behind ScriptDoctor