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kpetrakis01Logliner
In the 1960?s, when her Greek village is devastated by drought, a teenage girl?s parents force her to migrate to Sydney Australia to marry a stranger and bring them prosperity but finds both racism and friendship, opportunities and mistreatment.
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After her Greek village is devastated by drought, a peasant girl must support her parents by an unhappy marriage to a stranger in? strange land, urban Australia.
(28 words)
Isn’t the genre biography rather than history?
Anyway, my version sets up dramatic contrast between rural and? urban as well.
Not sure the time period is necessary for the purpose of the logline because it was a predicament teenage girls have had to endure in other decades in modern times, even today.? And I think it’s? obvious that unhappy entails discrimination and mistreatment.
Is her main goal really to send $$ home to the parents who forced her into marriage? How about new better goal – escaping that marriage and starting life for herself.
Ripping on dpg?s rewrite-
?After their Greek Village is devasted by drought, a young woman must marry a stranger in a strange land. She struggles to escape the brutal marriage and make a life of her own in 1960s Australia.?
Good start.
Seems like there is? too much going on. If the focus is to be on the racism, integration, and money, then is the marriage necessary? Sounds like the parents would send her there to work, not to force her into marriage. Or the opposite- if the focus is to be about the marriage and racism, then is the money necessary? Sounds like the parents would force the marriage in a misguided attempt at her having a better future and not that they need to be supported (though there could be one scene or no more than a? subplot about sending money).
Do you have a theme in mind yet?
I find the forced marriage? entirely credible.? Because in traditional cultures that is still a SOP,? ?Marriages are business and social deals between? families.? Whether the bride and groom love each other is incidental, accidental.? Financial considerations are implied or explicit.
She could be a child bride who marries someone old enough to be her grandfather.? That still happens (a lot!) in some countries.? In this story, the groom could be a widow who wants to marry a young chick,? good lucking, still a virgin (mandatory) and potentially fecund. And he can afford to pay good money in return to her parents.
No argument there. The point is that it’s possible to have too much going on in a story and it’s worthwhile for the writer to consider the theme or else how all these work together and get enough time: forced marriage, supporting her parents, racism, and fish-out-of-water.
Is the idea being developed or is this already written?
Even with four characters, one is still technically the protag or has the most significant arc so keep it from her pov. Maybe you can state the others in general or it simply doesn’t belong in the logline if they’re a subplot.
Make sure the others are needed because it’s usually best for one protag to represent the experiences of many.? Like 12 Years A Slave, the movie wouldn’t have been as good? had even one other character experienced a different form of the same predicament. (We see a few in Act I, not Act II.)
This sounds more character-driven than plot-driven and having to make money is enough to hold it all together. Clarify that she has to work and that it’s not about the husband sending money.
To avoid the wrong impression, avoid “force.”? Consider something like, “…parents send her away….”
That you have “too much” material is always a good thing, an indicator of a story’s dramatic potential.
BUT:
>>>the story would have 4 lead female characters in different situations as migrant women in Australia in the 1960?s.
IOW: you have in mind an ensemble story. I suggest combining and condensing into one protagonist, or dual protagonists at the most.? Having four separate co-equal characters and story threads in a feature film? can lead to truncated story lines (for want of time to adequately develop each story) diffused focus, and diluted emotional impact.