A high school graduate prepares to move out of his childhood home. However, in order to pursue a future in journalism, he must first let go of the memories that are tying him down.

The revised version is still about a plot that moves in reverse gear, about a character facing his past rather than his present or future.

For the purposes of the logline, the story should start where the conflict starts. If the conflict started some time before he graduated, that is where the logline should start. What was that conflict? What objective goal was he striving for as a result of that conflict? Who was the antagonist?

Let me try again: I’m guessing the concept is a coming of age story about a teen who must exorcise a psychological ghost or three in his past before he can go forward with his life.

If so, then the logline needs to specify the ghost– the bad “memories”. Which is another way of saying that story needs a great hook — something that makes it different from all the other stories about characters who have to deal with bad “memories”?

The movie “Ordinary People” (1980) comes to mind. It’s about a teenage boy dealing with awful memories — the death of his older brother in a boating accident . As the movie opens, the surviving brother has already attempted suicide once out of guilt and remorse. But the bad memories of the accident still torment him; the suicidal urges still rages within — he’s in very real danger of trying to kill himself again..

So the movie is about a boy fighting for his life — the stakes don’t get higher than that. The plot of the movie is the climax of his personal struggle to face down the ghost of the boating accident.

A tentative logline for “Ordinary People” might be: a guilt-ridden, suicidal teenager must overcome crushing remorse for the accidental death of his brother or he will try to kill himself again.

Now, it could be argued that this is not a standard logline because the positive objective goal (stay alive) is implied by a negative: don’t try suicide again.

However, the movie, “Ordinary People” was adapted from a best-selling book: the concept was already pre-sold. It didn’t need a logline with a hook, any logline at all.

What I’m leading up to is that unless your adapting a best-selling book, a pre-sold concept, your story does need a logline with a hook. And, imho, “let go of memories” is too vague to be a hook, to grab attention. There is nothing in “let go of memories” that make the story stand out from all the other stories where characters have to “let go of memories”.

And the reader of the logline needs to know what the stakes are. If the teenager can’t come to terms with his past, what is the consequence? What does he stand to lose?. What’s at stake?

fwiw.