In the summer of 1984, a young black boy, ROMEN, and his white best friend, CHAD, dream of making it big in the music industry. Their dads have other ideas. Romen ends up an MMA fighter and Chad battles alcoholism while selling supplies to bars. Now adults on the brink of failure, they must work together to overcome the vestiges of racism, addiction and abuse that stand in the way of a renewed childhood dream.
GeekTazPenpusher
As their lives begin to fall apart, an alcoholic bar supply salesman helps his best friend, an MMA fighter, chase his childhood dream to play music at a storied Austin, Texas venue.
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Because the MMA fighter is the character with the goal, it seems that he would be the likely lead character, if that is the case the logline should be written from his perspective.
However, if the alcoholic bar supply salesman is the lead character then this version is fine.
Agree with comment by Richiev, the “MMA fighter is the character with the goal,”
making the Mixed martial arts fighter the protagonist.
My first reading of this logline created an image of ‘bromance’ … but the logline contains little reference to character’s age. So, defaulting to stereotype of alcoholic reads ‘old and tired’, creating a picture of an old grumpy guy helping out a youthful, athletic fighter, to achieve a creative goal of musical success.
Which leads to the question of story logic: Why might a character of fit and healthy mind, turn to a character of alcoholic disempowerment for help? There is little within the bracketing of ‘alcoholic bar supply salesman’ indicating a plausible outcome that our hard knocking MMA fighter might actually achieve his goal of creative expression. Think Luke Skywalker turning to Jedi master Yoda for help – there’s a real sense our hero might at least get to first base.
Plausibility is key to fiction, as it enables the reader to suspend disbelief, and briefly enter a construct of story world.
As their lives begin to fall apart,
an alcoholic bar supply salesman
helps his best friend, an MMA fighter,
chase his childhood dream to play music at a storied Austin, Texas venue.
Agree with Richiev.
If the salesman is the main character, what’s in it for him? What does he stand to gain if his friend succeeds? What does he stand to lose if he fails? IOW: what personal dream comes true for him if his friend’s personal dream comes true?