Famine in rural Ireland forces a loving father to make a dark deal with a pagan spiritual entity to feed his family. When the bond is broken he must choose between losing his child or his soul to settle his debt.
Jonathan WynnePenpusher
Famine in rural Ireland forces a loving father to make a dark deal with a pagan spiritual entity to feed his family. When the bond is broken he must choose between losing his child or his soul to settle his debt.
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giannisggeorgiou:
Re:
>>>what is the action that drives Act II?
As far as I can tell, the deeds the farmer performs and the consequences that follow from the terms of the contract? he made with the devilish spirit.? For eventually he has a change of heart.? I take “when the bond is broken” to mean he stops performing his end of the deal.
It’s perfectly legitimate for a protagonist to make a wrong choice at the end of Act 1 and then have a change of heart later (either at the MPR? midpoint reversal) or end of Act 2.)? ?After which? the action and objective goal might shift into reverse gear.? (“Groundhog Day” is a good example.? In the 1st 1/2 of Act 2, Phil Connor’s objective goal is to exploit for personal gain and pleasure the fact that he’s time-trapped in?Punxsutawney, PA.? But after the MPR , his? objective goal and m.o. change: he uses the day to help others and learn new skills.)
Anyway, like you I would like a clarification of the pact the farmer has made.? What is he supposed to do to fulfill his end of the bargain?? Worship the devilish spirit?? Or…?
My reading is:
“Famine in rural Ireland forces” = inciting incident
“a loving father to make a dark deal with a pagan spiritual entity to feed his family” = the protagonist’s decision that sets the plot in motion.
A concern here is we don’t know what the dark deal is, what the father must do per the deal he has made in the 1st half of Act 2 that enables him to feed his family.
“When the bond is broken”? = the MPR, the midpoint reversal.
“”he must choose between …” = the ultimate crisis, the central dramatic dilemma created by the plot.
It’s a classic deal-with-the-devil plot.? The farmer has made a Faustian bargain.? And all such bargains comes with fine print, a “gotcha” clause,? that the protagonist ignores, or discounts the possibility he will ever have to? deal with.? And initially,? it seems like a sweet deal.? The devil delivers on his end of the bargain… until the MPR? when the protagonist wants out of the contract.? But he can’t get out of it except at the terrible cost of losing what he loves most.
Re Nir Shelter’s:
I object. Written like this, it looks as if “striking a deal” is the action that the protagonist is trying to achieve throughout the Second Act. Instead, “striking the deal” is probably the actual big event that sparks the Second Act.
From where I see it, what the protagonist is trying to achieve throughout the Second Act is to get out of the demon’s contract.
Also, I will argue that we need to know the demon’s price, which will indicate the stakes and the conflict.
Thus:
There is something bothering me with “finding a way to break the contract” as a main action, because I am not sure what kind of scenes or sequences it provides. Does the father investigate the demon’s backstory, as in The Ring, for example? Does he look for an exorcist, as in?Drag Me to Hell? Not sure what writer Jonathan intends to do.
Jonathan, I love the concept, though.
Loglines are not about choices that ultimately have to be made late in the 2nd Act or the 3rd Act, dilemmas that have to be resolved one way or another.? Loglines are about? the plot — the action, the conflict — that follows from an initial choice made by the end of the 1st Act.? Period.? Full stop.
The dilemma of having to choose between his soul or his child is the ulitmate crisis arising from the choice he made? at the end of Act 1 , the deal with the spiritual entity.? As such, the dilemma constitutes a spoiler.? Loglines should never contain a spoiler, should never reveal the ultimate crisis or how the plot plays out.? It should only disclose the basic details that set the plot in motion.
The plot in this logline is what happens after the father makes the deal with the pagan spirit.
I suggest you think of a logline as a brief description of the major plot points in a story. In other words, don’t try and tell your story or expand on any particular detail in a logline.
Check out the ‘Formula’ tab on the top bar to get a better understanding of logline basics.
I would re write the above as:
After a famine hits their Irish village, a father must strike a deal with a demon in order to feed his family.
Adjectives hardly, if ever, add to a logline – it’s the unique combination of subject matter, action and goals that will make the concept sound interesting.