On the verge of a succession crisis, a good mermaid princess is banished from her kingdom to the human world for her forbidden love of humans; but when her two wicked sisters usurp their father’s throne and destroy each other in a power struggle to rule the kingdom alone, she must choose between humanity and saving her people from the tyranny of her sisters.
Sylia GrayLogliner
On the verge of a succession crisis, a good mermaid princess is banished from her kingdom to the human world for her forbidden love of humans; but when her two wicked sisters usurp their father’s throne and destroy each other in a power struggle to rule the kingdom alone, she must choose between humanity and saving her people from the tyranny of her sisters.
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It is hard to tell what is the story and what is the back story.
My guess would be, what sets the story in motion would be her sisters usurping her father. In that case here would be a logline attempt.
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“When a content housewife discover her sisters have usurped her father’s undersea throne, she must leave her loving family and return to her past life as a mermaid to restore her father to his rightful place.”
I agree with Richiev . ?At 64 words, this logline is more than twice the ideal normal word length and it lacks a tight focus.
Also loglines are not about what a character “must choose” ?but about what a character actually chooses to do and the consequences that follow. ?Loglines are about the problem that results from??making a decision, not about the dilemma.
So amidst all of these complications and conflicts, what is her objective goal? ?What does she want?
Also, the nature of her sin needs a tighter focus: ?it’s not just that she fell in love with humanity in general; her sin is that she fell in love with a specific human. a man. ?The story needs to be framed as the story of a woman torn between duty and desire.
fwiw
I like dpg’s point about; a story is not about a choice but what they do about that choice.
Along those lines,
1: If the lead chooses to go back home to stand up against her sisters, she would be ‘doing something’ she would be taking action.
2: If the lead character chooses the human world, she would be ‘doing nothing’
3: Since lead characters are active (Do something) not passive (Do nothing) as written it is a false choice. (A good lead character isn’t going to choose to ‘do nothing’ over choosing to ‘do something’)
4: So (As dpg was basically saying) I would drop the ‘having to choose’ angle in the logline and just start (The logline) with her sisters taking the throne and the lead (As a result of her sisters action) returning home to save the kingdom.
A decision tends not to be enough. This is huge amount of setup. All good but I don’t see the story. Is the banishing in the script or just a few pages?
What is her goal in life? Try it from that angle.
Agreed with all the above comments.
Also, and this may be a wording issue, I’m not clear on who gets destroyed. Do the sisters kill the king and then destroy each other? Or do they destroy someone or something else in the process? Who is the MC needing to save her people from?