Unnatural Disaster
After reuniting with and marrying his childhood friend, an aspiring writer tries to build a normal life in the wake of getting dragged into the murder of an arsonist that killed his wife's father when they were kids, only to find that there is no "normal."
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Thanks for all the responses. I knew this wasn’t perfect when I put it up. All of your comments make sense, but the bigger thing I’m taking from them is that, despite this being too wordy, it doesn’t convey the story enough.
Do either of these seem clearer and/or stronger:
1. A man reunites and falls in love with his childhood friend, becomes an accomplice when she kills a man in revenge, and will do anything to build what he things is a normal life around her increasing instability.
2. A man must reconcile his guilt from witnessing an arsonist set a fire that killed his neighbor when he falls in love with that neighbors daughter years later.
What is the writer’s objective goal after murdering the arsonist?
Apart from what’s been stated above —
‘…getting dragged into’ is vague. What does this actually mean? To me this ‘dragged into’ needs to be specifically spelled out. Why is he dragged into the murder of the arsonist? Is he a suspect? Is his wife?
What happens to this guy (inciting incident) that causes him to HAVE to do something (required action to achieve required/ desired goal)? And what is at stake if he doesn’t achieve said goal? In my mind, the most important part of this question is — What does he have to do? At the moment there is no hint of this. A logline should either spell this out directly, or at least strongly imply it.
If it’s a case of the ‘dragged into’ meaning that he is dragged into the investigation of the murder of the arsonist, than I’d be thinking that he either HAS to prove his/ his wife’s innocence..? But that’s just a complete stab in the dark… Below is just my shot based on this loose assumption:
‘When his new wife becomes the main suspect in the murder of her Father’s killer, a struggling writer will do anything to prove her innocent to keep his newly found blissful life.”
A bit wordy — probably not your story — but hope it helps… (…and does he have to be a Writer?)
Thanks for the input. The inciting incident is the reuniting with the childhood friend. The murder of the arsonist happens around the end of the first act.
I count 3 candidates for the inciting incident: 1] the murder of father; 2] the murder of the arsonist; 3] The marriage to the woman. And the winner is…(?)
What is the writer’s objective goal?
Who is the antagonist who opposes his achieving his objective goal?
What are the stakes, what does he stand to lose if he fails to achieve his objective goal?
This logline seems to imply you have two inciting incidents
1) reuniting and marrying his childhood friend
2) getting dragged into the murder of an arsonist
This may be a logline problem or it could be a story problem. Either way, if you stick with one inciting incident in the logline, it’ll help clean it up and make the logline less jumbled.
Hope that helped, good luck with this.