I am literally smarter than Marlene King

Basically after MonA, instead of going straight into another A abruptly, they should have introduced a more complex A motive. The major issue I have with big A is that its soo similar to MonA. they're both just torturing the girls for fun, and there's no big end game with all the things they make the girls do, no big reveal where we find out A's evil plan was to do xyz, that links every A text together.

instead of big A asap, they start getting anonymous packages, and they're clues. Stuff like Alison's anklet that Aria and Jason worked so hard to get or like a news paper article about Bethany young dying on the same day Ali disappeared etc. Obviously the girls will still refer to this person as A (which keeps the audience engaged because there's still an A, just a more mysterious A), but they don't sign stuff off with A or anything like that. Then we get a season of the girls slowly figuring out Alison isn't dead. Like they slowly piece together more and more of that night, vivienne darkbloom etc etc, until they finally realise it's not alison's body. that's the season finale. Maybe there's some small suggestions A can hurt them, like A gets more intrusive with the hints. they learn about boyshorts but don't really figure out who he is, and about cece rhodes and ali's mom.

Then s4, they try to find her. new "A", has a few more hints for them, but not much else. They start loosing interest and giving up (maybe midseason finale s4) and try to move on and live their lives and then FINALLY we get A behavior and they refer to themselves as A. A makes it very clear that they know WAY too much and to stay on A's goodside they HAVE to go do xyz or else. This can be unrelated to Alison, maybe some general torture from A here, just to throw the liars off the trail. And it can also be threats toward Ali or like Ali's gonna be dead now, something like that. Anyways end of s4, they find Ali and she sees them and FREAKS. she makes the girls jump in the car and starts driving.

S5 opens and we get Ali's explanation. yes, she was being stalked. and they're like by mona! we know! and she's like no, i thought that too. Ali heard about Mona getting caught and she tried to come back, tested it and the next day got a creepy text. Ali shows them her messages and most of her messages were not feminine and really not the A we know, just pervy and creepy and obsessive and all knowing. So she had to run away again.

Then she explains that night after bethany was killed, she realised that no body knows she's alive. Mona still tried to kill her, but she survived and (without mona or anyone else knowing) escaped Rosewood. That also makes Mona's A make way more sense. (she killed Ali, still had dark thoughts whatever, killing Ali helped but then a year later, Aria came back and she had so much hatred and anger for all of them, still). That's why they had to run, whoever her stalker is, is much worse than A. Then we get a season of them on the run together while trying to figure out who this stalker is, and they start getting messages that the stalker is getting closer. Or they just see someone in a black coat around.

Then, finally the stalker catches up. It's Wren (with Ezra's boyshorts alison backstory of being obsessed) or honestly, just Ezra. Then we learn that he's been obsessed and omg look everything adds up.

he realised Ali wasn't dead when she came back to town. He tried to find Ali, but lost the trail. Realised the liars know Ali better than anyone else, but he can't be too suspicious or obvious. He needs them to find Ali for her. He's also kinda convinced that at least one of them helped Ali escape and maybe if he threatens Ali enough they'll call or text her to check on her. would you look at that an actual interesting A storyline that addresses the whole underaged girls dating older men. It can end with Ezra killing Ali or something like that, which actually gives all your young impressionable viewers some good advice; the older guy is going to hurt you, he's a predator stay away. not that hard jesus

Then we also get the whole 'stole the A game' idea without it being a complete repeat of Mona A. Instead, it's so much more threatening and scary and calculated. also this just makes way more sense than Cece.