Update: When a night of UFO watching goes terribly wrong, a 12-year-old aspiring astronaut makes contact in a way she never expected. (SciFi/Family)
EricaSamurai
Update: When a night of UFO watching goes terribly wrong, a 12-year-old aspiring astronaut makes contact in a way she never expected. (SciFi/Family)
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The logline baits and switches. It baits the reader with the prospect of an alien sighting — then switches to something else altogether, a storm, an accident, no where near as interesting.
The purpose of a logline is to bring forward, highlight, and pitch the most interesting aspect of the story., aka: ” the grab” or “the hook. ?
What’s the hook in this script? ?The accident? ?The storm? ?The fight for her life? ?No, it’s the prospect of an alien sighting and the consequences that follow from that event.
Is the script going to deliver on that prospect? ?Is that what the script is about?
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I’ve updated the logline which I believe works better.? I don’t want to do a bait and switch, was never my intention.
Hi Erica,
to me it’s a bit too opaque. ?I think it’s suffering from what Blake Snyder refers to in STC3 as Hiding the Ball. ?It tells me something mysterious is going on – but I don’t know what – it may have something to do with AlIens but possibly?not.
I guess the question is, would i watch or finance this movie to see ‘how alien contact is made in an unexpected way?’ ? And I don’t think i would.
Whereas if you told me a bit more about the protagonist and her goal and what the meat of this story is about – then I’d ?likely be much more keen
good luck!
A plot for a scripts always ?has the character expecting or hoping one thing will happen — and something ?else happens instead. ?It’s standard operating proceduce in drama, script writing 101. ??If a characters gets what he expected or hoped for after the inciting incident — what’s the drama, the tension, the conflict in that?
So its no “news”, ? no hook or grab in a logline to say that something unexpected happens. Logline readers expect that something unexpected will happen to the main character.
What matters is the?significance of the unexpected event , the consequences that follow from the unexpected event. ? That is, the problem ?(or opportunity) created by the unexpected event. ?What is the character going to do about it?
When a 12 year old?terminal cancer patient who aspires?to become an?astronaut is granted a tour of the international space station, He?unexpectedly finds himself at?ground?zero of?humanity’s first recorded contact with?extra terrestrials.
“When a 12 year old?terminal cancer patient who aspires?to become an?astronaut is granted a tour of the international space station, He?unexpectedly finds himself at?ground?zero of?humanity?s first recorded contact with?extra terrestrials.”
Interesting, but not really my story at the moment.? Thank you though for the suggestion.
I am somewhat hooked because I would be interested in a story about a 12 year old aspiring astronaut, but ‘goes horribly wrong’ doesn’t really tell me much about the inciting incident, and ‘makes contact in a way she never expected’ – is this about alien contact or something completely different? ?As you say it’s Scifi/ family then I assume there will be aliens of some sort but I feel we need to know something of major importance happens, for the girl. ?eg ‘she must bridge the gulf between earth dwellers and aliens’ ? ‘she is the only one who can prevent a catastrophic point of contact’ ?’she must take a journey beyond her wildest dreams’ … I don’t know but I expect her to be more that a bystander to a monumentous event, somewhat dependent on what went horribly wrong in the first place. ? ? I’m sure this could be a great story, and more than just a short.