Singer's Gene – when a repressed young singer is offered the chance of a record deal her world changes. Complications arise when she is sucked into the temptations of the industry and the constant attention from her parents and an unknown organisation paying close attention to her career.

When a repressed young singer is offered the chance of a record deal her world changes. Complications arise when she is sucked into the temptations of the industry and the constant attention from her parents and an unknown organisation paying close attention to her career.

Being an ex-radio producer/jockey and amateur musician myself (well, I professionally scored one feature film!), I’m always interested in stories set in the music world.

The logline has a few issues, some that may point to story problems.

“Is offered the chance of a record deal – her world changes”: This may not be a strong enough catalyst for the story. Outsiders will see a record deal as a standard thing in the life of a musician. The mainstream audience won’t get that this is a big deal…

“her world changes” is way too generic: the world changes for every main character in every (successful) movie after the inciting incident.

“complications arise” is again too generic: this is what stories are about, so by putting it in a logline, you’re effectively saying nothing.

“sucked into the temptations of the industry”: What temptations? Drugs? Alcohol? Sex? All of these? Better be specific, so we know what movie to expect.

“the constant attention of her parents”: I suspect there is more than just ‘attention’ but rather ‘control’. Now this could make for an interesting premise (see: Pixar’s Brave!).

“an unknown organisation paying close attention to her career”: now you’ve finally piqued my interest. I suspect there is a crime angle to the story. Be more specific about it.

Finally, what is the genre? Is it a drama (musician trying to stay on the right path while avoiding parental meddling) or a thriller (criminals using the musician for their purposes)? Or still something else? This must be clear from the logline.

To conclude: cut out anything that is generic and replace it with specific, selling details. Be clear about your genre and the character’s main (visible) goal.

Perhaps read our hints on how to write a logline again. (https://loglines.org/howto/)

Good luck!