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melissahudson2011Logliner
After an immodest teenager gets jilted at the school dance by her boyfriend and then loses the homecoming competition, she stumbles upon family secrets of lies and an unsolved murder mystery that turns her life upside down.
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I love the idea of an immodest teen sorting through an unsolved murder and uncovering family secrets long the way, but I wonder how it connects to the jilting/losing the homecoming crown. In other words, the inciting incident feels a bit disjointed. Working to figure out how the school dance trauma relates to the mystery or murder would lend some clarity and might help to strengthen plot points. I hope you post a revision. I?d love to see where this goes.
As Beck noted.?? How does being? jilted, etc. lead to the discovery of family secrets?? What is the real inciting incident that leads to the discovery?? If there is no cause-and-effect relationship between the two disappointments in high school, then those events are irrelevant to the logline.
>>>turns her life upside down.
Vague and it frames her as, once again, the victim of circumstances.? The job of the protagonist is to be proactive.? In this situation, what becomes her objective goal as a result of the discovery?? What MUST she do about the discovery?
The setup and the goal should match.
Your logline starts with one setup: The lead gets jilted (Which would imply being jilted is what the story is about)
Then changes to family secrets.
If the goal of the lead character is to solve the family secret. Then what sets the story in motion is when the lead discovers the family has a secret.