The stag night before his wedding, a man is handcuffed to a stripper – who turns out to be wanted by cops, the mob, and her psychotic boyfriend.

Hi Mrliteral.

Sorry for the late reply. Thank you for the detailed response – some very good points here.

but tell us about the guy all this is happening to: what’s he like? If he’s the main character we need to understand his perspective of the events in which he gets involved. It makes a big difference to the tone if he’s an easygoing accountant vs. a former assassin.

I wasn’t too sure about characterising as it should come across as innate. (Or it did in my mind anyways) But I do very much see your point – he’s a mild mannered guy. Passive. Emasculated. Hen pecked. About to get married to the wrong girl. Throughout this adventure – he gets some cojones.

The phrasing and structure could use some tweaking as well. Just saying he IS? handcuffed to a stripper makes it sound intentional and underwhelming — even though it’s obviously a conflict, it still needs to come across as such. It would also be a stronger conflict, especially for the stripper character, if the psycho is an ex-boyfriend. Not making him an ex makes it sound like she approves of and appreciates his psychotic nature, which seems unlikely…however if that is the specific intention, it still could work…depending on the tone and execution in the script.

Yeah – I was worried about that. It does seem to thrown together. Needs specificity. 

Oh yeah – good point with the ex-boyfriend.

The phrase “stag night” is not as widely recognized as “bachelor party”, and you could lose the phrase “before his wedding” as that’s already understood. Use the word count to help define the situation as more than plot; give us a better idea how the character feels about these things. We need to know more than just what happens; it has to be compelling and interesting as conflict from a character’s point of view.

I hope the wedding comes across as the protag’s strong, clear intention.

I also generally recommend starting a logline with the protagonist, as we tend to to care more about the people these things are happening to than merely the things which are happening. That’s how scripts themselves are usually structured, so loglines should be built the same way.

I usually do. In this case – the INTENTION/GOAL is in that first bit. He’s getting married. He wants to get married. He needs to survive the night to get married. Regardless – good point.

Maybe something like “An easygoing accountant gets stuck handcuffed to his bachelor party stripper — who is being chased by the cops, the mob, and her psychotic ex-boyfriend.”

A nice longline.

Normally I prefer loglines to be one straightforward sentence, no commas or other punctuation, but there are definitely times when it’s okay to use them. For one thing, you have a group of antagonists, so commas are needed for the list — just don’t fill the entire logline with pauses for no reason. The way this is structured, you have the distinct pause after the protagonist and conflict are made clear — without this moment, the whole thing would feel like a rush to get out the information and be unnatural, so it’s better to include it. After the pause, there is a list of antagonists stacking the deck against your main character, and the stakes are implied so they don’t need to be stated outright…thus you have everything you need!

I think you’re right – it’s a lot to digest at once.

Thank you for all your points!

TDH