STOCKHOLM, PENNSYLVANIA
A young woman, kidnapped when she was a kid, returns home to the family she barely remembers and struggles to feel ?at home.?
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Although the structure is all sound and most of the elements are all here, there’s something a bit off about this logline. Maybe its because it’s a little vague.
Firstly, although you have given us the protag, i think for a story like this she needs to have a flaw (having been kidnapped there’s an infinite choice of them. Obviously one thats suited to the idea of struggling to reconnect with the family would suit best).
When this flaw is worked out I think it will make it easier to give her a clearer goal. I think that a clear goal is the most important thing in a logline. It lets the reader know i) where the story is going and ii) what the genre will be. I think that just saying ‘struggles to feel at home’ isnt quite enough.
If there isnt a clear goal you could instead state what her main obstacle is instead. In this perhaps her flaw is making her family have a hard time accepting her and she has to over-come this before she can ‘re-join’ the family?
hope this helps
James Michael makes some reasonable points. My own take is:
While the basic story concept should work as a moving drama, the logline fails to sell the concept as it is too terse and a little dry. Instead, careful attention should have been paid to create a vivid and stark sense of what the young woman is going through. If the right words are chosen here, then the reader’s empathy of the woman can easily be ‘clinched’. For example, “A teenaged girl remains haunted by nightmares, and subject to volatile mood swings, when she returns to a family she hardly remembers. Her abduction since childhood leaves scars that will test both herself and her family.”
Secondly, a hint of some kind of external antagonist would help to make this set up more cinematic. Fortunately, not a lot extra needs to said to create the right impression. For example, “Then she must go to high school for the first time.” (I am assuming this is a personal drama, rather than a thriller, which is why I leave out the option of the abductor(s) returning to try to re-take the girl.)
Steven Fernandez (Judge).
I agree with the above. Engaging premise, but I don’t see what is actually happening in your story.
A young woman who was kidnapped as a child comes home to a family she barely remembers.
This sounds like a movie I would see – after I’ve seen commercials (and maybe a movie poster). Your logline needs to be a bit more fleshed out, and detailed.