Bloodstone Creek
A young woman struggles to survive when a creature from Guaran? legend is unleashed on a rural Louisiana town.
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This screenplay has been written.
In my opinion, an effective logline should convey the central premise, and give the reader an impression of the primary protagonist.
Anyone can fight to destroy a monstrous creature, but if the protagonist is an awkward young mechanic, as opposed to a fiery young novelist, you have a very different script.
LOGLINE: A fiery young novelist visits a secluded Louisiana town and ends up fighting to destroy a monstrous creature that has escaped the paramilitary group charged with studying it.
I think that this logline is the better one out of the other three. It reads much easier and I find that the story is easy to imagine in its basic form, but I agree with dpg’s advice further down the thread. It’ll hopefully make your logline have even more impact.
“A fiery young novelist” – Adjectives to describe a protagonist should directly relate to the problem at hand. What does “fiery” have to do with being able to survive the monster? Does “fiery” make her a stronger or weaker person in dealing with the monster? If the answer is neither, than that particular adjective is superfluous to the logline.
Whatever adjective used to describe her preferably should indicate a character flaw, a personal issue that puts her in even greater jeopardy in relation to the creature — to wit, increases suspense, dramatic tension.
“is unleashed by the paramilitary group ” — passive, intransitive. Action should be described with active, transitive verbs. So ” when a paramilitary group unleashes a monstrous creature…”
“ends up fighting for her life “. Is anyone else’s life also at stake. It’s always a stronger logline if a protagonist is fighting for a cause greater than herself , or stake characters besides herself. Strongest if fighting for both.
And wouldn’t her objective goal be to not merely survive, but kill the monster?
I believe your logines are getting better. I would probably put the inciting incident first however the story is getting across.
Also, a pared down version:
A fiery young novelist visits a secluded Louisiana town and ends up fighting for her life when a monstrous creature is unleashed by the paramilitary group charged with studying it.
A fiery young novelist visits a secluded Louisiana town and ends up fighting for her life when a monstrous creature out of South American folklore is unleashed by the paramilitary group charged with studying it.
I’m still working on it, but here is where I am with it right now.
When a fiery young novelist visits a rural Louisiana town, she quickly finds herself fighting for survival when a monster, straight out of South American folklore, escapes the paramilitary group commissioned to study it.
1: When a creature from Guaran? legend is unleashed on a rural Louisiana town. — If you are going to tell us the creature is unleashed, you should probably give us the bad guy who unleashed it.
2: ‘Young’, is a vague character description.
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“When a satanic land owner unleashes a deadly creature on her small town to force the residents to sell, a feisty school teacher must rally the town if they are to defeat the creature and save their land.”
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Hope that helped, good luck with this!
While it may be central to the story, It’s likely most readers of the logline will be puzzled rather than intrigued by the explicit reference to the Guaran?. I surmise that most people are clueless about the Guaran? are. And if they do know of the indigenous tribe, the term only creates further confusion, rather clarity, as it did in my mind: What is a legendary animal from South American doing in Louisiana? So I suggest using the term “legendary creature” or “mythical creature”.
Also “struggles to survive” is vague, needs specificity. Of course, she has to struggle to survive. Doesn’t every character in every movie of this genre? It comes with the territory of the plot. So what is so unique, different about her struggle? What makes her struggle stand out from all the other struggles in all the other scripts being written in this genre?
Which is to say: given the unleashing of the legendary creature, what must she do about it (besides merely survive)? What is her objective goal?
And what else/who else is at stake in her struggle? (She can’t be the only one whose life is put in jeopardy? Is it not the case that she is also fighting to save other people’s lives, her family, friends, community?