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ShizzPenpusher
A selfish millionaire, widowed to a radical terrorist academic that collected torture porn, attempts to teach her children the merits of assertiveness skills and socialist feminism
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Shizz:
By “What’s the visual?” I mean two things:
1] An effective logline evokes scenes in the imagination of a? logline reader? as to what the conflict, the struggle will look like on a movie screen.? The imaginary scenes may be totally different than what the writer puts in the script. No matter; what matters is that the words stimulate the reader’s imagination.
To be frank the part of your logline that stimulates the imagination (for better or worse) is “radical terrorist academic that collected torture porn” — but that seems to be back story, not the central story.? In comparison, the central story “teach her children the merits of assertiveness skills and socialist feminism” — not so much.
2] As indicated earlier, an effective logline states a concrete objective goal.? A concrete objective goal is one that can be a visualized on the screen in a way that informs viewers that the protagonist has succeeded or failed. For example, if a runner’s objective goal is to win the gold in the Olympics than there are two obvious visual moments? that inform the audience she has succeeded:? she breaks the tape at the finish line and she gets the gold medal draped around her neck as she stands on the highest pedestal.
So, what’s the visual for “teach her children the merits of assertiveness skills and socialist feminism”.? What does the scene look like that visually informs the audience that she’s succeeded or failed?? (Or are assertiveness skills and socialist feminism means, rather than ends?)
Shizz:
I appreciate your thoughtful response.? My metaphor of choice for some of the most popular dramatic conventions is the that they are Procrustean beds — after the mythological character of Procrustes who sliced off or stretched victim’s legs to fit into an iron bed.
>>>does the selfish person see their own selfishness as a flaw if it?s something that means that they survive and prosper
Lots to chew over about the “character flaw”.? Suffice it to say that in the machinery of drama,? the standard function of the character flaw is to create an internal problem? 1]that complements the external problem; 2] Which? will prevent the character achieving her objective goal; 3] Until she acknowledges and resolves that flaw; and 4] at the outset of the story, she is unaware of the flaw or unaware that the character trait is a flaw – – she may think it’s a character strength; 4a] It’s also possible for a character strength to become a character flaw through? hubris — too much of a good thing is bad.
I do not subscribe to Ayn Rand’s proposition that selfishness is fundamentally a virtue.
>>>moral compass here seems to be a recoil away from the radicalism of her dead husband
Seems like the basis for a classic Hegelian dialectic.? She reacts to his thesis? with her antithesis.? (So… could the ensuing dramatic dialectic lead to a synthesis?)
[BTW: Hegel made the most significant and useful contribution to tragedy, and by extrapolation to dramatic theory since Aristotle, IMHO.]
>>>And yet this also produces a conflict for the protagonist since she also seems to think that the selfishness and greed is not morally right.
Okay, but what’s the external demonstration of that conflict in the story?? How does it play out in terms of her behavior, her relationship with her children. What’s the visual? ? Film is a visual medium and internal conflicts have to be manifested as external behavior.
Shizz:
I do not think that the paradigm of the Hero’s Journey is suitable for any and all? story material.? For one thing, the paradigm was constructed out of archetypal and mythical elements that pertain to adolescent boys and young adult men.? Other paradigms have been proposed for adolescent girls and young adult women such as the “Virgin’s Promise” paradigm developed by Kim Hudson.? And still other paradigms are better suited to the distinctly different issues and challenges of? middle age and old age.
That said,? drama is about conflict that results in change.? Change in knowledge; change in character; change in relationship; change in status. Usually the burden of change belongs to the protagonist.? But not always. Some times it is the dramatic task of a pivotal secondary character.
Taking your logline at face value, it says the woman is “selfish”.? Well, isn’t that a flaw?? Isn’t that something that needs to be changed in her attitude and behavior?
Also, she wants to teach her children certain skills and ideas.? Teaching entails change, from a state of ignorance to a state of knowledge, from being unskilled to becoming proficient. So the potential for change out of both necessity and desire seems to be embedded in your logline.
I gather from your comment that you look askance at the corpus of generally accepted dramatic conventions.? I have a different point of view.? Enough said.
?
Clarification please:? did the woman know while he was alive that her husband collected torture porn?? Or is that something she discovered after he died?? (If the latter, it could qualify as the inciting incident for the purpose of framing the narrative of real life events into a dramatic structure.)
>>Based on true events, its rather unclear why the protagonist does these things, or whether she has an ultimate goal.
This is where drama “improves” on real life. As the director Alfred Hitchcock said: “I don?t want to film a ‘slice of life’ because people can get that at home.”? Most people don’t watch a movie to see a faithful recreation of real life events.? They want to view something that’s better than quotidian life.? Or that’s real life with all the boring parts cut out — that’s a paraphrase of another quote from one of the great masters of cinema.
Thanks for the additional comments. Sounds like an interesting story and please don’t think I’m suggesting that there’s not something in here worth writing a film about. I’m merely going by the information provided in the logline.
Why is she teaching her children this? To what end? What’s the ultimate goal? Film is a visual medium – how is she teaching them? Watching a woman simply teaching her children something could mean any number of things. I would consider coming up with an objective goal that represents this. Something visual.
What journey does the protagonist go on? Her children are the ones learning things currently, what does their mother learn? The characteristic is usually reserved to suggest the character’s arc within the story. Does your protagonist go from selfish to selfless?
How does her dead husband’s torture porn collection motivate her to teach her children about assertiveness and socialist feminism?
The inciting incident is one moment that upsets the balance in the hero’s life and sets up the goal to correct the imbalance. What’s the one moment in your story that does this? Is it the death of the husband? The discovery of the torture porn collection? It shouldn’t be complex, it should be one simple incident.
Give the generator a go. It’s a really useful tool that can help isolate the key components and streamline the logline.
Hope this helps.
Check out the formula page to help with formatting. Better yet, try the generator.
This isn’t really a logline at the moment, it’s more of a rough premise. What’s the inciting incident? What’s the protagonist’s goal? What bearing does the fact that her deceased husband collected torture porn have on the story? Or the fact that she’s a millionaire? Why is she trying to teach her children these things? To what end?
Currently, I don’t really understand what the story is about and why certain elements are considered important enough to be in the logline.