EX BOYFRIEND OF THE BRIDE
After he finds out his ex-girlfriend is getting married, a man decides to go to the wedding in order to stop her from going through with it.
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Cameron, why is it so important that the man stop the ex-girlfriend from getting married? Is he still in love with her? This log-line strikes me as something that could happen in a single scene – I’m not really sure there is a story here. Does the man have a flaw/flaws?
There are three things I noticed about this logline:
First, you haven’t told us about the lead character other than he’s a man; I would give a little more description.
Second, instead of saying ex-girlfriend, I would up the stakes and call her, “The love of his life” that way we understand why it’s so important he stop the wedding.
Third, instead of stopping his ex from marrying, I would consider the more positive, “Winning her back.” as his goal.
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“When a former gambler discovers the love of his life’s getting married, he attends the wedding vowing to win her back.”
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Hope that helped, good luck with this!
The issue with this logline is that it’s generic and bland. There’s no description of the protagonist or his motivations. There’s a goal, yes, and urgency. But this is fairly cliched set-up that’s been covered many times before.
What twist can you put on this to make it interesting? What makes this stand out from other rom-com’s? (I assume it’s a rom-com).
If the protagonist is gay and she’s trying to stop an ex-girlfriend marrying a man – that could be interesting. If the love of the protagonist’s life is marrying his identical twin or own father – that could be interesting. There’s no detail, high-concept or twist to make this story stand out at the moment.
All valid comments made so far by others, especially by Richiev and ZombieJoel. My own take, from scratch, is:
Groan! Yawn! Have we not seen this story before enough times already?
Going by the logline alone, this story sounds so cliche and uninteresting. If the script happens to be quite clever and distinctive, the logline totally fails to convey these qualities to the reader.
What the reader is left with is an oft-done crisis with nothing different presented about it. At a minimum, the reader needs to be intrigued by some new twist on this old tale. Is the ex-girlfriend marrying an alien or a serial killer, at least? (Neither being super original, of course, but at least that much would be a step in the right direction.)
Much better would be the description of something redeeming about the protagonist. For example, perhaps he has had a clairvoyant ‘flash’ of what life will be like with the girl. Or perhaps the girl had left him over a silly and unfair misunderstanding. Or over a personal failing that he has now overcome … In short, any detail that will help the reader want to root for him.
For added appeal, an additional layer of distinctiveness would be really helpful here. For example, some kind of unusal cultural or ethnic angle (the girl is of an exclusive Hindu caste?). Or some interesting extra character (another girl who is actually better for the guy?).
Steven Fernandez (Judge).