On a quest to find his long-lost father, a godly athlete struggles for answers when he discovers his fugitive mother abducted him as a small child. Tagline: Basketball was just a game; finding out the truth became his goal.

Great that your re drafting the logline and the work you’ve done on it. However please re post drafts of the same logline under the original discussion thread. That way its easier for reviewers to see what comments have been made already and not repeat others and also this way everyone can learn from the development of the logline over time.

As for this logline, I’m not sure what “…a godly athlete…” means, when read on its own, this logline could mean the story is set in ancient Greece. When I read “…a godly athlete…” first image that popped into my mind was Adonis arguing with Zeus for the truth about his family history… Though I’m sure this wasn’t the intention.

Further more “…struggles for answers…” is a vague description of the main action the MC takes because it can be interpreted as a variety of different actions and is really up to the eye of the beholder.

Lastly “…when he discovers his fugitive mother abducted him as a small child.” is an inciting incident that the MC made happen rather than had happen to him and most good inciting incidents happen to the MC out of their control. This means that an external force shifted the equilibrium of existence for the MC and the MC needs to take significant action to fix it.

Hope this helps.

I think this draft added further complications that don’t contribute to much needed clarity.

The fact that he is an athlete is unrelated to his setting off to find his biological father. Additionally him being devout (better to specify a religion) seems unrelated to him being an athlete or a rape child.

If he on his own account decides to defy his mother and pursue his father’s identity the jeopardy to his championship hope is of his own doing. This means that you are specifying in the logline the central dilemma the MC will face.

In my mind good loglines should present a character description and a contrasting situation that will inherently cause the reader to understand on their own the central dilemma the MC will face.

I’m not convinced that making the MC an athlete, a champion sports man or devout are helping this story.

Lets quickly look at the bare bones of your story as it is currently:

MC – Young offspring
inciting incident – Discovering the nature of their inception
External goal – Find the father

What type of character would suffer the most from this or encounter the biggest obstacles trying to achieve this goal?

Personally I would pick a lesbian detective that works for the sex crimes department of a police force and life long member of the young socialist party.

Because the violent crime was done against the mother and therefor a female perspective would increase the emotional stakes the MC will face when finding the father. More so by making her an active idealist she would be overly zealous in her morally apposition to this man as well as emotionally apposed to him. Lastly as a law enforcement officer she has the power to bring him to justice.

From this we can extrapolate multiple levels of dilemma and internal conflict. I want to find my dad but I want to put him in jail for the rest of his life. As a representative of the law will I be able to fulfill my duty and ignore my personal emotions? etc…

In short no need to explain how or why the MC will face a huge dilemma rather plant the seeds in the readers mind that will grow into the central dilemmas on their own accord.

Hope this helps, Nir.