Logline
RuthiePenpusher
A confident police chief in a small Texas Hill Country town discovers his entire life has been based on lies and deception, and he must unravel the truth and confront the past or risk losing his job, his family, and his sanity.
Share
The story in this concept is vague as the plot is unclear. Loglines are best made up of specific event and action descriptions, not vague statements.
Here are a few examples of what I mean:
“…discovers his entire life has been based on lies…” this could be a great addition to the script, and could make for a good way to encourage the MC to do something, but what does it mean in practical terms?
It could mean that he’s been living in a computerized world. He then one day discovers that the world is controlled by machines and what he thought was reality was actually a well designed virtual reality expressly built to enslave humanity to provide power for the machines. Or, it could mean that he discovers his parent were Ilegal Mexican immigrants and subsequently he is an illegal Mexican migrant as well.
Best you describe a specific life changing event at the start of the story which motivates the MC to take action, instead of a vague statement that could be interpreted in many different ways.
Secondly “…must unravel the truth and confront the past…” much like the above, describes a situation that can be interpreted in many different ways – what specifically must he do?
Lastly, a plot is a sequence of events unified under the pursuit of a single goal, and a logline’s primary function is to describe a plot. “…risk losing his job, his family, and his sanity…” describes three separate goals, which one is the primary goal of the ‘A’ or main plot in your story? Describe that and only that in the logline.
For more information on logline conventions check out the ‘Formula’ tab on the top bar.
You should probably tell us what the ‘lie’ is… since it is the crux of the story
Ruthie:
For the sake of continuity of discussion, please post changes under the thread of the original logline rather than posting a whole new logline.
That said, the revised version doesn’t seem to ?address any of the issues raised by posters in the original version.