When an earthquake infests an apartment complex with fast-breeding spiders, a young entomologist's plan to save the residents means forcing a war veteran survivalist from his home.

Rewording may make the pace better.? Suggestions?

Is forcing one person from their home the main trust of the story or just one of the obstacles?? The main objective is to save the residents, which if the entomologist does not achieve this, his plan will not work. As such, it?s a pretty important obstacle.

What makes forcing this person out so hard?? I think it?s pretty clear the entomologist can?t save the residents if one of them doesn?t want to leave.

Why do you call it out specifically??? If the resident doesn?t leave, the plan won?t work, ergo ?can?t save the residents?.

But as I said in the beginning, if you think rewording may make the pace better, then I am open to any and all suggestions?

“Coming of Age” / thriller

Actually, he gets arrested at the end for practising entomology without a degree because there had been a lot of unlicensed entomology going on in the area and the police decided to put an end to it.

Also, this other kid is stoned to death by a philatelist group for sending a letter while not being properly accredited and using stamps that were rightfully theirs.

The point I am making is the scientific interest itself is called ‘entomology’ even if you don’t have a degree in the subject.

There is also no rogue philatelist group, that I know of, meting out justice over “unqualified” stamp purchasing.

1: Perhaps.

2: Homes are generally important to people.

3: Spiders haven’t been “deadly” for decades. It’s just not believable anymore.

Although, if you have any other suggestions for how to make the logline ‘gripping’, I’d be happy to hear them.

4: ‘Wannabe’ tells people even less. Old? Young? Is he preparing to become an entomologist, or is he just very bad at it? More questions are asked than answered. And to make the character clearer, I’m going to get bogged down in a sentence long description of the little shit.

Finally… : You’re not seeing a written connection between forcing somebody out of their home and saving the complex because there isn’t one. The goal is quite clear, to save the residents.

As far as the spiders suddenly going away when the veteran moves out – most definitely, in a way.

Unfortunately, none of the above suggestions apply to my story.

1: Still, it’s only the difference of one word, however, I’ll concede if this makes room for further description.

2: So, something like “when an apartment complex is infested with spider, etc… must to save his home” – connection made.

3: How would you tent an apartment complex?

Hmmm… I wonder if “fast-breeding flesh-eating spiders” could be considered overkill… oh well, if there’s room in the logline.

4: Again, why does somebody need a degree to study something? Perhaps ‘amateur’ might be a good substitute since the implication of youth and lack of qualification are both covered by its definition.

5: The plan requires the move before the plan can happen. The plan itself isn’t that important.

Although… it probably should be. Plan could lead to a connection, could lead to the move, etc…

I guess the connection between the kid and the war veteran needs to be mentioned.

We know we need to get rid of the spiders, so…

I guess if there’s a way to tie all that together, it would help greatly. Any suggestions on how to do that?

“What I see entailed in your premise is a promise: that there?s going to dramatic showdown between the amateur entomologist and the spiders.”

Perfect. As long as that’s clear, I can now dedicate myself to making the rest of the logline work.

“”Entomologist? implies somebody with the credentials, a degree.”

Since it seems people have been getting stuck on that, ‘amateur’ is going to have to work. My point was that even people in college studying chemistry can go about calling themselves chemists before they have their degree. It’s a thing.

However, what I’m left with now is making it clear that the boy is 11-12 years old without saying ‘child entomologist’ (even without the degree) or something similar, since ‘child’ says nothing about the character, even if there is a implication (gained through bias, I must admit) that a child interested and/or practising science could be a lonely, geeky/nerdy, child.

ENTHUSIAST! Perfect. Now I can pretty much get rid of “entomologist” entirely.

A main character needs to take charge, they can’t wait for people to suddenly go, “oh, this guy might have an idea…” There will be no ‘turning to’. Besides, there are always pest exterminators who are trained to take care of such things, so he wouldn’t be the ONLY person to have a chance to save them.

And you’ve taken away the war veteran survivalist. Who is the kid going to try and bond with now?