Healing from the car accident that killed her husband, the young author purchases a mysterious antique mirror and falls in love with the handsome reflection who tells her fascinating stories of daring and adventure and betrayal.

What DPG said.

How about:

After falling in love with a mysterious reflection of a handsome man in an ancient mirror she found, a widow must work with a wizard to free her new love from a mirror world entrapment.

Just an example of how to include the death of her former husband, an inciting incident and goal.

The logline seems to convey the sense of a woman who is a helpless victim of circumstances. It describes her problem in specifics, but it falls short when it comes to describing a specific course of action she takes to solve her problem.

How does "do what needs to be done" translate into a specific course of action? ?In spite of her subjective problem -- her grief --what exactly becomes her objective goal?

What is the real inciting incident anyway? ?The car accident or buying the mirror? ?Or is the car accident in the back story? ?Whatever, neither incident seems to trigger the woman into a course of action toward a positive, life-affirming, life-enhancing?objective goal. ?

Which is what an inciting incident is supposed to do, even though it initially creates a problem. ?The problem is a goad that motivates the protagonist to struggle toward a specific, positive goal. ?It may be the wrong goal or the protagonist may fail to achieve the goal, but at least she's struggling toward a specific solution to her problem.

It's not enough for a logline to describe a dramatic problem. ?It also needs to inform a producer or director exactly what course of action the protagonist ?will pursue to solve the ?dramatic problem. ?Not vaguely, but exactly, not in generalities but in specifics.

fwiw

The logline seems to convey the sense of a woman who is a helpless victim of circumstances. It describes her problem in specifics, but it falls short when it comes to describing a specific course of action she takes to solve her problem.

How does "do what needs to be done" translate into a specific course of action? ?In spite of her subjective problem -- her grief --what exactly becomes her objective goal?

What is the real inciting incident anyway? ?The car accident or buying the mirror? ?Or is the car accident in the back story? ?Whatever, neither incident seems to trigger the woman into a course of action toward a positive, life-affirming, life-enhancing?objective goal. ?

Which is what an inciting incident is supposed to do, even though it initially creates a problem. ?The problem is a goad that motivates the protagonist to struggle toward a specific, positive goal. ?It may be the wrong goal or the protagonist may fail to achieve the goal, but at least she's struggling toward a specific solution to her problem.

It's not enough for a logline to describe a dramatic problem. ?It also needs to inform a producer or director exactly what course of action the protagonist ?will pursue to solve the ?dramatic problem. ?Not vaguely, but exactly, not in generalities but in specifics.

fwiw