An ex-con, tries to move on with his life, but his life is turned upside down when he falls for the sister of a reformed paedophile.

I think every writer struggles to let go of an idea sometimes. It goes with the territory - nobody likes someone to criticise their child.

Good luck with it! There's definitely a story in here though. I wonder if the relationship with the sister is the B-story or if that's the main story... if it's the B-story it shouldn't be in the logline, but if it's the main story it should. It's a tricky one...

I would consider giving the ex-con a personal motive rather than he just doesn't like paedophiles. At the end of the day, you said the guy next door was a reformed paedophile and he's an ex-con who is trying to go straight... they're incredibly similar (which I think is great!). BUT people who are trying to stay straight (not to mention you didn't say he was convicted for murder) don't just plan to kill someone without motive. I think it'll be hard to justify this act unless you have something that makes us truly despise the paedo next door. The problem is, at that point, the ending you have planned - the ex-con protecting the paedo - you will need to do a lot of work to get the audience back on the paedo's side.

Could you make the ex-con a former abuse victim? He despises the guy next door because of his history, but we discover (through the romantic relationship with the sister) that it wasn't quite as black and white as that. That the paedo was 17 and his 15 year old girlfriend accused him of rape which led to him being on the sex offenders register? I don't know... I'm just spitballing.

To me, the bottom line is that we have to sympathise with the paedophile and I think it's really important that something that makes us sympathise with him comes across in the logline. I actually wonder if the paedophile is the more interesting character here?

Hope this collection of ramblings is useful in some way hahaha.

My apologies.

I finished an outline in 3 days last week and I'm still attached to what I've got.

I am however going to test out the idea from different angles and see what people respond to.

In a logline, in my opinion, you want to limit the amount of imagination that the reader uses. If a producer reads your logline and their imagined version of events is completely different to yours, what they have in their head could be the difference between a read of a pass. Why take this chance? The more specific you can be the better. Things will inevitably look different in everyones heads, the worlds will look different, the protagonist will look completely unique to everyone, but the story should be as close to what is in your head as possible.

Quite simply, to me, why would you want someone to imagine a story that's different to the one you want to tell?