After his family is kidnapped and sold to English slavers by renegade Fante tribesmen, Ashanti tribal warrior Mwabo embarks on a perilous voyage across the Atlantic to the sugarcane plantations of modern day Jamaica in search of his wife and son, where he leads a slave rebellion against the tyrannical white masters to reclaim his family's freedom and liberate his fellow Africans from the misery of enslavement.

The essence of your concept, even as a mini-series seems to boil down to:

“A warrior embarks on a perilous journey across the Atlantic to free his kidnapped family from slavery on a sugarcane plantation in Jamaica.” (24 words)

The inciting incident is implicit in “kidnapped family”.
The objective goal and stakes are clear: free his family from slavery.

It isn’t necessary to name the tribe in the logline. It’s central to the story, of course, but for the purposes of a logline, it’s not essential. Nor is it necessary to name the main character in a logline. What is necessary is to clearly define the character and you have: he’s a warrior.

The rebellion is the means to the objective goal, but not the objective goal — is it not? By that I mean, his motivation to take the journey is to free his family by whatever means it takes. That’s his primary objective goal.When he finally reaches Jamaica, he discovers that “what means it takes” will require instigating a rebellion. This, of course, ups the ante, the risk, the conflict. All good ingredients for a compelling — and marketable — story. But isn’t the rebellion a means to an end: the liberation of his family. That is, the rebellion is not the original reason he takes the hazardous voyage. It something he discovers he must do to free his family.

My point is that a logline sketches a plot. And a plot should be single in the purpose, about one objective goal of its main character.

Finally, is this based upon an actual historical event? Either way, as suggested by Gabor, you might want to preface the logline to indicate the historical period, like “In 17??, a warrior embarks…” (“Modern Jamaica” is confusing.)

fwiw

creative_minds:

First of all, I think it’s a potentially interesting and compelling story. I googled slave rebellions in Jamaica and see that there was one in 1760, Tacky’s Rebellion. But I see your story line is significantly different. I’m okay with that although I am curious to know why you did not choose to dramatize one of the historical slave rebellions.

Now then, the substance of your logline. As I noted earlier, your logline seems to state two goals: free his family; free the others. But a logline is about a plot and a plot should be about one and only one objective goal for the main character. (That dictum dates back to Aristotle’s Poetics and it still makes practical sense. Yes, a movie, and even more so a mini-series, can have multiple story lines, but all the threads should be framed and organized with reference to the ONE objective goal of the protagonist.)

In your story, the main character is the warrior.

That the warrior would want to liberate his family is a no brainer. But then I put myself in the mind and context of a 17th century man living in Ghana and asked: in an era of primitive communications when it took months for information to cross the Atlantic, how likely is the warrior to be aware of how horrible conditions are thousands of miles away in Jamaica? He may have heard rumors, but how could he know how bad conditions were to trigger his wrath and resolve to liberate all slaves in Jamaica, not just his family?

But then I thought of it from another angle: What if his goal, while still in Ghana, was to free his tribe (which would include his immediate family but also his extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws) whom were captured en masse and sold into slavery by a rival tribe? Which happened all too frequently in that period. Loyalty in 17th century West Africa was to one’s tribe — not to one’s race. (And even today, loyalty to one’s tribe often trumps loyalty to the nation state.)

So I find it credible that he would make the journey to free his tribe — his extended family. But I don’t find it credible that he would embark on the journey with the explicit goal to liberate everyone else of his race, slaves from other tribes.

(Although once he gets to Jamaica and sees how horrible conditions are AND realizes that he needs the help of other tribes to free his own tribe, his tactics change. But not the objective goal: liberate his tribe.)

So, here’s a first iteration of a logline based upon my understanding of the concept and the historical period:

In 1656 a Ghana warrior embarks on a perilous journey across the Atlantic to liberate his tribe, kidnapped and forced into slavery on the sugar plantations of Jamaica.

I think it is important to specify where he’s starting from and where is destination. It gives the reader a sense of the dramatic sweep of the story and how much struggle and risk is entailed in the journey.

And to reiterate, after he gets to Jamaica and sees how awful conditions are and that he needs to enlist help from other tribes, then liberating others becomes credible. As a MEANS to his ONE objective goal: liberate his people.

Don’t know if any of this makes sense. Hope some of it helps.