An unemployed mother works hard to get an honorable job as a zookeeper, but then finds herself at the center of an ethical conflict between a zoo and an unorthodox shelter for wildlife.
LoemoembaLogliner
An unemployed mother works hard to get an honorable job as a zookeeper, but then finds herself at the center of an ethical conflict between a zoo and an unorthodox shelter for wildlife.
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“An unemployed mother works hard to get an honorable job as a zookeeper, but then finds herself at the center of an ethical conflict between a zoo and an unorthodox shelter for wildlife.”
The inciting incident of the story seems to be what happens that puts herself in the center of an ethical conflict. What is it? Does she witness an animal being killed? While I’m sure the effort to get the job is a part of the script, at the beginning, it is not the main plot of the story.
As a result of whatever happens that thrusts her into the plot, what does she decide to do? Get the person authorizing this fired?
After she sets her goal, what does she do to achieve it? Get proof that animals are being mistreated and present it to the person’s boss?
What is the mother like? She was unemployed, but during the story she is employed so it’s not a useful description. Is she anxious, depressed? A veteran? Former cop? Bipolar? What is she like?
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I hope this helps.
What’s the nature of the ethical conflict?
What becomes her objective goal as the result of the conflict?
What’s at stake?
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Agreed with the above comments.
As a rule of thumb, loglines are made up of clear details, not vague statements. Therefore descriptions such as “…an unorthodox shelter…” are not helpful in a logline.
These kinds of descriptions could mean anything, for example, they could give all the animals massages after being fed – that’s unorthodox…
Obviously, you mean they are doing bad things to the animals, but that could also mean any number of things – medical experiments, inhumane living conditions, systematic euthanasia.
I would drop the first part of the logline because as written you have two inciting incidents.
The first inciting incident is getting the job, the second inciting incident is discovering she is the center of an ethical conflict
Since the ethical conflict seems to be the story, begin the logline there not how she got the job.
Is it absolutely important for us to know that she is unemployed? Obviously it won’t matter anymore seeing as how she gets the job. ?I am also not clear on who the antagonist: is it her employer (the zoo)? Or is it another zoo and the shelter?
I would write it like this:
“An inexperienced zookeeper must fight for animal rights when she discovers unethical practices from her new employer and a shelter before a rare elephant is killed”