by nhwilliams · Initiate · 51 pts
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Needs work Active protagonist Clear goal Keep it simple
Re:
>>>conflict comes from change, from nature
That can work. In man (or woman) confronting nature or environments stories, the forces of nature or vagaries of the environment are the (impersonal) antagonist. Three examples: The Martian (2015); All is Lost (2013); Cast Away (2000). However, in this version of the logline, it is not clear (to me, anyway) that this the case.
Needs work Active protagonist Filmable incident Clear goal
There's a great opportunity for character drama, but we need specifics.
There's no goal—she doesn't pursue anything, she's 'pulled into' things and things 'wake' in her. No antagonist, just diffuse atmosphere: sister's illness, cats, neighbors' griefs, a magic gift all crammed together with no cause-and-effect chain. What does she want? What must she do, and against whom? This reads as mood-board setup, not plot. Pick one throughline—likely the sister—and give her an active, external goal with a visible obstacle and endpoint.
With my apologies for butchering your story, but this is a logline that addresses a few of those issues. Consider it 'the bad version':
"When a young archivist discovers her estranged sister's undiagnosed illness is tied to a family secret buried in the town's water supply, she must use her strange new gift for turning water into stories to expose the truth before the sister who controls that secret silences her for good."
Can you reveal a little more detail about the story?
Right now, much of the description is interior — invisible.
Thank you for this. The diagnosis was right and it was useful.
You were correct that she had no want and that the sentence had no cause and effect. She was getting pulled into things and gifts were waking in her, which is atmosphere rather than story. Here is the revised version:
When her sister’s undiagnosed illness derails the animation studio they planned since childhood, a young archivist comes home determined to hold the dream together, until two magical cats arrive and drag her into her neighbors’ lives, forcing her to teach a neighborhood to let go of what they’re clutching while she refuses to loosen her own grip.
That gives her an active want, holding the dream together, a clear chain of cause and effect, and the central irony of the series in the last clause.
On the version you offered, I’m going a different direction. The show sits in the Ghibli tradition, where conflict comes from change, from nature, and from inside a person, and often without a villain at all. A conspiracy in the water supply and a sister silencing her would be a different series. The antagonist here is time, and the thing standing between my protagonist and what she wants is her own refusal to let go.
I appreciate you pushing on it. The logline needed the pressure.
I love that it sounds a little weird. The Ghibli reference instantly justifies it.
Let me unpack the new version, step by step:
"When her sister’s undiagnosed illness derails the animation studio they planned since childhood"
That's an Event, but can you be more specific than "derails"? Does she steal the ink? Or sabotage the computers?
"a young archivist comes home determined to hold the dream together"
That's in a way repeating the dream, as we already got it from the previous step. It's also keeping a status quo, rather than aiming for change. And I'm assuming she's not arcing, but helping the neighbourhood to arc.
"until two magical cats arrive and drag her into her neighbors’ lives"
Now, this sounds like the real inciting incident. When there's magic, it's usually the introduction of magic that starts the story (for the viewers).
"forcing her to teach a neighborhood to let go of what they’re clutching while she refuses to loosen her own grip."
Here we go into vague, interior territory again. What is she actively trying to achieve?
I'm asking for a lot, and the next draft of the logline may be even longer. But that's fine: you can trim and polish later.
