A military bioweapons collector attempts to cover-up an accidental release of a deadly, new strain of flu by destroying the project’s hard drive before his Russian counterpart can prove the CIA’s involvement.
KaznatsLogliner
A military bioweapons collector attempts to cover-up an accidental release of a deadly, new strain of flu by destroying the project’s hard drive before his Russian counterpart can prove the CIA’s involvement.
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Is a military bioweapons collector a real thing? People actually collect that stuff? If you said the bioweapon was disguised as the flu it may seem more threatening. Anything else you can add about the antagonist to spice this up? I would scrap mentioning hard drive and say ‘all involvement’ or something like that.
yes there are actually covert bioweapons collectors who collect the deadliest strains ‘not to be used as weapons, but to be researched for cures in case bioterrorists exploit them as bioweapons’. The story is about the accidental (and possible) creation of a novel lineage of flu that targets and kills kids. The cure is quickly discovered but has to be implemented quickly on an island in quarantine. The real issue is the covert project’s hard drive contains data showing the US illegal involvement with bioweapons research and my protagonist has to recover the hard drive before the Russians. I decided to use this logline instead. Please let me know how it reads:
After the accidental release of a deadly flu virus, a military bioweapons collector races against his Russian counterpart to retrieve a hard drive with sensitive data about the CIA?s involvement.
The problem with your latest iteration is that it doesn’t address the urgent question that will be on the audience’s mind: ?what about the stopping the pandemic? ?Isn’t that priority number one? ?Isn’t proving ?who dunnit a secondary issue, not the primary, urgent issue?
actually the pandemic is a secondary issue in this story, what is really important is the cover-up. I have my team manage to find a cure using available technology, the problem is getting it onto the island. The islands dictator won’t allow the biohazard team to enter unless they turn over my Collector, ?who he thinks did the outbreak to assassinate him. Hard to prove they didn’t since it is CIA backed. The Russians have to decide, turn over her former lover to a madman who plans to kill him in exchange for allowing her team access to the island to treat the outbreak, or something else. My Collector goes with something else and I won’t reveal anymore. it really is a dance with lots of twists, including my ‘hero’ isn’t any better than his Russian counterpart
>>>? the pandemic is a secondary issue in this story, what is really important is the cover-up.
You want to do a story about a conspiracy story, but the readers of this version of your logline are going to want a story about a rescue.
Why? ?Because your logline places ?a huge elephant in the room — and then ignores it and assumes logline readers will also?ignore it. ?Well, imho, they won’t. ?(I can’t.) ?Why? ?Because the stakes of ?stopping the plague trump the stakes of ?unmasking ?the conspiracy. ?
There can be no higher stakes in a story than innocent human lives at risk. ?That is one of the few universal, ironclad dramatic rules. No exceptions.
I’m just saying.
So, if that’s the story you want to tell, then it seems to me you need to frame the plot as a ?search for the hard drive, the ?McGuffin, as the only means to stop the plague. ?Because that holds the data for the cure. Oh, and yeah, the smoking gun with fingerprints of the CIA .
>>>including my ?hero? isn?t any better than his Russian counterpart
Not ?a problem. Because he can redeem himself in the eyes of the audience by stopping the plague, saving the lives of untold numbers of innocent people. And bring to light, the party responsible for starting it.
IOW: ?he discovers who dunnit in the process of trying to stop the plague. ?(The best conspiracy stories work with the true villain unmasked in the 3rd Act, not revealed to the audience in the 1st Act or 2nd.)
fwiw.
i appreciate the comments but have to ask you ?if Chris Kyle or Ed Snowden are heroes? They both did things that helped their Nation is some eyes while hurting it in others. The outbreak is just another job to my ‘hero’ but he also is a patriot and knows releasing classified info to the Russians will hurt not only the CIA but also could impede projects that actually do provide cures against bioweapons. He takes the ‘long view’ of his job very seriously. Why can James Bond kill people barely involved with his mission and show no remorse? Why would the government use a psychopath like Hannibal Lecter to help them solve a case? Sometimes bad men can be used to do good for society. My character isn’t bad, he is simply amoral. He didn’t mean to set a virus free but the project sure let it happen. If you think this story is BS, I suggest you research the real events it is based upon. The 1976 outbreak of swine flu may have been an escaped virus or a mutated one in a vaccine. And the ‘Russian flu’ the following year WAS an accidental (or possibly intentional in retaliation) ?release just as describe in my story:?http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/4/e01013-15.full
My novel is more of a fictionalized version of real events and here is a link to show you that what I am describing actually happened and if you care to read more than a logline here is my current iteration of my ?query:?http://agentqueryconnect.com/index.php?/topic/36908-viral-some-things-are-best-left-dead/
I debated having my story classified as horror for this reason. Yes, the government does this type of research and I am a former molecular biologist ?who worked with viruses and also ex military. The problem is most of the public is clueless about our American Bioweapons program. I won’t make a hero of my main character but there are plenty of others for the reader to relate with.
I don’t think the protagonist being amoral is problematical. I think the viewing public is conditioned to accepting ?the setting of spook stories, that is, a world where value systems are in gradations of grey rather than black and white.
And I don’t think the plausibility of your premise is BS. ?I aware of the the issue of viruses going… viral, particularly as genetic engineering becomes more robust and refined. ?I’m aware of the military interest in the bioweapons as a threat and as a contingency. ?(Like anthrax, for example, which is why they continue to store viable supplies.)
So, I think there’s a story here. ?But I stand by my statements. ?If your premise is that a lethal virus is breaking out — but the primary objective goal of your character is to pin the blame the CIA rather than save innocent lives, well, it just won’t fly. ?It won’t sell.
And after all, isn’t his own life in danger as a result of the plague? ?Why on earth would he be more interested in finding who dunnit than in saving his own life? ?Doesn’t he have skin in?that game? ?Since he’s amoral to begin with, why wouldn’t he place his own self-interest 1st? ?To wit, save his own life.
And btw, why does the default, go-to bad guy have to be the CIA? ?Since the conspiracy is about the use of bioweapons, why can’t it be a secret military agency devoted to that purpose? ?I realize that every thing that has gone wrong in the world since the Garden of Eden can be blamed on the CIA, but that’s too facile, too common. ?It’s become a movie trope, a cliche. ?Why not spread around the blame?
I really do appreciate your input and interest. It means my concept intrigues you and you are trying to help me present it in a way more palatable for the general public. The valid points you raise I actually address ?in my story. ?I use CIA because that is what the public thinks it should be but actually it is USAMRIID that handles biologicals and I create a fictional covert group few know that I call CBOB (Congressional Biological Oversight Bureau) . As far as saving lives, that is the focus initially, kids are dying and my character is the one who discovers it doing his job and also locks down the island with HIMSELF also being trapped. I take care of the kids and infection issue about half way through the novel, then he switches to saving his own ass and those with him, he has to negotiate with the head of the Russian team who is actually his friend and the Russians are under the Minister of Health for Russia who is the Russian Team leader’s ?sister and also my characters former (possibly still) lover. Deals have to be cut and the Russians know they need to contain the outbreak and treat the sick but they also have a responsibility to collect specimens to help with future outbreaks. The problem is the conditions demanded by the islands leader would also cost the life of their American friend. There are lots of decisions and intrigue and I don’t wish to ruin it for you but if you care to actually read what I have competed of the second draft here is a link: heck I would love input since I am writing a novel with damn little input from others:?https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fddIi33tBZdQRPNPRaxzg-a7sGbtG5dkvYWrb_MxFiA/edit?usp=sharing
feel free to offer any suggestions, I have an editor friend who does and also a librarian and another novelist, I won’t turn down input and generally actually use it
Kaznats,
I think you have the raw material for a convoluted and compelling plot. ?Which, I realize makes it quite a challenge to compress into one pithy 25-40 word sentence.
And I think it’s a topical issue, particularly in light of the extraordinary advances in genetic engineering which threatens to make the technology cheap enough and easy enough for terrorists groups to buy and use to develop designer micro-weapons.
As a spectator taking cheap shots from the bleachers while you wrestle with your story, ?I don’t know what else to say. ?Except that in my personal logline rule book, the first and most important element a logline needs is a great hook, a unique story angle that immediately grabs attention, a “secret sauce” that is irresistible. ?The reader cannot not bite the hook, want to read the script. ?Because that is the Prime Operative of a logline, in ten seconds, make a reader want to read the script.
So putting aside characters, goals, stakes, ?antagonists, yada-yada, what is your hook? ?In 25 words or less, what’s your “secret sauce”, that differentiates your script from all the other scripts that have written, all the other movies that have been made about viral plagues, about conspiracies involving the Usual Suspects, the CIA and the Russians?
first the easy question. The amoral female is Tatiana, the Collectors girlfriend who is also the sister of my character’s Russian counterpart, They are actually friends and met in a bar in Istanbul, my Collector liked the Russian who introduced him to his sister, Tatiana, ?who instantly fell in love with him. But, alas she is a controlling bitch and he doesn’t like to be controlled. In my story, the American and Russian collectors never knew each other were in the same line of work until they both ran into each other doing field work in Liberia during a Lassa fever outbreak. Both were wearing biosuits then realized they were not only friends but also competitors. But, by then they were friends so now they try to outdo each other during outbreaks.
My hook is hard, I tried real science once with Bill Gates saying this: Bioterrorists could one day kill hundreds of millions of people in an attack more deadly than nuclear war, ?http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/17/biological-terrorism-could-kill-people-nuclear-attacks-bill/?but no one seems to like a realistic hook. My Collector isn’t even my favorite character, that would be his boss who is a corrupt Cajun Senator. Man I love Harley he is an old bad ass berserker, otherwise he is a nice guy but still a drunken corrupt schemer. My problem is I was told I have to have a main character in my hook and my novel is about a TEAM. ?The shaman’s daughter is a nun and also part black, French and Taino Indian. My book explores the very beach where Columbus’s men slaughtered the Taino and I also have a lot of central American Hispanic mythology. I even made a Pinterest blog to dump the images and info i use for research:?https://www.pinterest.com/richardstanzak/viral-chapter-67/
There is so much in my story apart from the Collector it seems sad to make my least favorite character the main one but he does drive most of the action.
The hook should be:
An ancient virus is resurrected for use in?a clinical study . It escapes and mutates the?common flu virus ?into a killer that targets children.?
My editor friend told me the VIRUS is actually my main character and actually I agree.
The reason for the general rule that a logline should spotlight one character is a matter of ego, cash, cathexis and group dynamics.
Ego and cash: ? It is often the case that a script only gets the green light and financing to become a movie after a major star “attaches” to the project. ?And major stars prefer to attach to scripts where they can shine as, well, the star, the actor who gets top billing, the most scenes – and the most money.
Cathexis: ?a 50-cent word that means “emotional investment”. ?It’s a psychological truism that its easier for a ?viewer to emotionally invest — to empathize with and root for — one character than to spread the same amount of emotional investment among an ensemble. ?Having to spread all that “psychic love” so widely dilutes the emotional experience for a viewer. ?What Joseph Stalin said about his policies and purges that led to the enslavement, torture and death of millions applies to drama: “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic.”
Group dynamics: ?In ensemble situations in real life, there is usually an alpha character, a 1st among equals, who stands out as the one with the charisma to lead the rest. ?Ditto in reel life where one character more than the rest drives the story. ?Whoever drives the story in terms of decisions made.actions taken is the one to feature in the logline.
Takeaway: ?a deep bench, a colorful ensemble of characters is always a plus for the script. ?But for a logline, ?less is more.
No doubt, you can think of movies that are exceptions to everything I’ve said. ?But exceptions are ?outliers in the distribution curve; they don’t invalidate the general tendency. And I bet that most of the exceptions you can think of are by writers who were already established insiders, not outsiders trying to break in like we are. To break the rules, we first have to show we can play by them.
fwiw
Valid points all. The only way around making my hook work is to change the main character to another who is also dominant but more empathetic.?Here is ?what I have managed with this sudden veering:
An Obeah Woman leads a bioweapons collector into the Ta?no ?Land of Souls? to find the cure for a deadly virus he helped create
?
Children suddenly begin dying from a mysterious illness in the isolated village of a medical missionary. Sister Genevieve Rocco is pulled into international intrigue when she discovers the deaths were the result of an accidental release of an ancient virus during a clinical trial. More will die unless she can help a Bioweapons Collector evade the island?s germaphobic dictator. A cholera epidemic and civil unrest offer afford little safety in an island on the verge of collapse so she turns instead to an aging shaman who is both her mentor and father. The Obeah Man sends them into Coaybay, the subterranean ?Heaven? of the Ta?no to find a cure for the man-made plague. But to get there they must first avoid becoming specimens of a Russian Biocontainment Force led by his Soviet counterpart and former lover. Only by solving the riddles of ancient petroglyphs can they find the ?Green Road? that leads to a cure and prevent the virus’ spread into a global pandemic.
Re:
>>>An Obeah Woman leads a bioweapons collector into the Ta?no ?Land of Souls? to find the cure for a deadly virus he helped create
For me the hook of the story, what grabs my attention, ?is that it is a redemption story: the man must find the solution to the problem he created. ?That’s a strong selling point and that is where I would suggest focusing the logline.
The role of the woman while important to the full story is extraneous to the logline. ?And a distraction because, as I said in another thread, ?it is likely to leave most logline readers scratching their heads, having to google to find out who the “Obeah” are. ?Something a logline should never do. ?You only got 10 seconds to make the sale, and the clock doesn’t pause while they google.