Following the discovery of an enemy radar station?s location, a pilot?s brash behavior threatens his chance to destroy it and earn the respect he craves.
mop1011Logliner
Following the discovery of an enemy radar station?s location, a pilot?s brash behavior threatens his chance to destroy it and earn the respect he craves.
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Loglines are made up of clear details.
What is his goal? Is it respect? Is it to destroy the radar? Is it to save a squadron? Is it to beat the enemy?
What is the inciting incident? What motivates him to have to achieve his goal? If it’s related to the discovery of the radar, how does that motivate him to achieve the goal?
Without a goal you have no plot, and the primary function of a logline is to describe a plot.
Nir
I’m confused by your review.
I would respond by stating that:
The discovery of the station’s location is the inciting incident,
The protagonist is clearly the pilot,
His character flaw that threatens his goal is his behavior,
His objective is the destruction of the station and,
The stakes (aside from destroying the station and what that implies) is the respect from others.
Are you suggesting that this logline doesn’t satisfy a logline’s structure or that the components aren’t specific enough? OR to get these answers, I need to purchase something?
mop1011
What time period is the the story? ?World War II or…?
Why would saving his life and that of his crew be a less important stake than winning their respect? ? Seems to me he has a deeper character flaw than being “brash”.
Hi Mop
I think what Nir is saying is that structurally it is a little confusing, despite the fact you have all the elements there. You say the discovery of the Station is the Inciting Incident, but his Objective is to destroy it. So, how can the Inciting Incident be the discovery? The inciting incident would actually be when he gets his mission to destroy it. ?So you kinda have it, and you are right the pieces are all there, but not quite right.
Earning respect may also be his goal, but generally in loglines you tend to focus on the physical goal. We should learn from the story that his brash behaviour has all been about proving himself and earning respect.
Hope that helps and hasn’t added to the confusion
Mop1011.
Not sure what you mean by purchase something, I will elegantly avoid speculating.
In answer to your questions, your primary concern as a writer should be clarity. Currently, the cause and effect connections between the various elements in your logline are not clear.
You state that the MC needs to destroy the radar? – this could be his goal.
BUT
You also state that the MC wants to earn respect – this could also be his goal.
Describing two goals in one logline is confusing. In your response, you specified that the respect he craves is his stake, but it isn’t – stakes are not an objective. The stakes are the potential for an outcome as a result of the MC either achieving or failing to achieve a goal. So what is the worst thing that will happen if the MC fails to destroy the radar? The answer to this question is the stake. Point is, if his goal is to destroy the radar describe that, and only that, as his goal.
Regarding the inciting incident, it isn’t clear how the discovery of a radar station motivates the MC to do anything. If, however, the radar station was responsible for killing someone close to the MC, then you could use its discovery as a motivating event (inciting incident) otherwise it’s simply another day in a war.
Lastly, his character flaw is somewhat cliche – fighter pilots are notoriously brash. Brash/arrogant pilots have been de rigueur in war movies, sure you can use that but Top Gun beat you to it. Assuming that brash is still the flaw, in what way does that inhibit his ability to destroy the radar?? Being brash wouldn’t logically affect his ability, so the connection between his flaw and action is unclear. Perhaps you should consider a different flaw, one that would make achieving his goal harder and therefore necessitate him to overcome it before he can achieve the goal.
Am I still clueless or am I getting closer?
“Near the end of the second world war, on a spy mission over Burma, a cynical co-pilot banks on unconventional tactics to save his crew.”
The good news is that ?the the latest iteration ?informs us as to the setting — World War II, Burma.
The bad news is that it leaves us clueless as what the dramatic problem is that requires him to undertake “unconventional tactics”. ?Who/what is the adversary and what is the threat the adversary poses?
An issue that has concerned me in all versions is the narrowness of the stakes. ?If you assay to portray a pilot as an heroic kind of guy, in spite of his flaws, then (particularly in a war story) he has to be fighting for something greater than himself or his crew. ?Something more important needs to hinge on his disarming the radar bunker — or whatever the threat is on the ground. ?Like a major military campaign to push out the Japanese, liberate the country is hanging in the balance. ?If he fails, the campaign is doomed. ?Or some such.
My point is his “unconventional tactics” have?got to be in service of a greater cause than saving his rear end and enhancing his reputation among his peers. ?What are the ultimate stakes?
fwiw
What DPG wrote.
I’ll add that you’re still using vague descriptions – “…unconventional tactics…” could mean any number of things. What must he specifically do?
To save his crew is a goal, but the obstacle and dramatic situation are unclear.
This is harder than I thought it would be.
Considering the advice from each of you, I hope this iteration is better than the last:
“Near the end of the second world war in Burma, an enemy artillery station has severed aerial supply routes, forcing a narrow-minded co-pilot to devise unconventional tactics to destroy the station.”
Is this story based upon ?or “inspired by” events or a real life pilot in the Pacific theater of World War II? ?Or is it entirely fictional?
DPG-
This story is based on my father’s service as a pilot flying prototype AWACs planes in Burma during WWII, however, the protagonist is the co-pilot.
Ninety percent of the script is historically accurate.
mop1011:
Good! Therefore, IMHO: the logline ought to ?say so with words like “The true story of…” , “Inspired by… ” or “Based upon true events….” or some such. ?Truth is stranger than fiction and also a stronger selling point for the concept. ?
Particularly for a story set in the distant past , like WW2. ?Yes ?WW2 is in the distant past now, two generations removed . ?So the only way to engage the interest of a contemporary audience in war story from that period is if it’s based on events that really happened, people who actually lived.
IOW: ?I don’t think a fictional WW2 ?story is marketable anymore. ?The sole exception to that economic reality is if the name on the script is Quentin Tarantino (“Inglourious Basterds”) ?- he has ascended to a difference universe where the ?rules the rest of us have to play by don’t apply. ? I could be wrong, but Tarantino’s flick excepted, I can’t recall another ?commercially successful film with a fictional story set in WW2 that has been made in the this century. ?Or any fictional WW2 film made in this century other than “Inglourious Basterds”. ?Can you?
My default assumption was that your story is totally fictional. And I suspect my assumption is typical. So I think logline readers are more likely to be interested in the script if they know it’s based on actual historical events.
fwiw
Right again!
“Based on real events near the end of the second world war in Burma, an enemy artillery station has severed aerial supply routes, forcing a narrow-minded co-pilot to deploy an unconventional weapon on the station.”