“They say first impressions are the most important. Luckily, twelve-year-old geek, Gordon Periwinkle gets a second.”
A reluctant geek looks to create a new image when he is the new kid in school. After he fails miserably, he gets a second chance to re-live that week, this time he takes a completely different path while fully knowing the outcome of each previous decision.
DackVigilantePenpusher
“They say first impressions are the most important. Luckily, twelve-year-old geek, Gordon Periwinkle gets a second.” A reluctant geek looks to create a new image when he is the new kid in school. After he fails miserably, he gets a second chance to re-live that week, this time he takes a completely different path while fully knowing the outcome of each previous decision.
Share
After trimming down to the necessary —
“A reluctant geek gets a second chance to relive the week he failed, at creating a new image…”
Logline has 3 mandatory components:
1. ROLE of the protagonist: a reluctant geek…
2. INCITING EVENT: …gets a second chance to relive the week he failed at…
3. GOAL: …creating a new image
First off, it’s better if you spell out “how he happened to relive that week” in the logline. A hint at that freak occurrence, much like your previous post (an event such as “saving cupid”) which could work as your Inciting incident.
Now if it seems a tad too simple, that’s because…it is simple, fundamentally; an interesting premise which needs a layer of urgency, because…
…What’s at stakes here??
What happens if he fails to change his image? It seems to be his selfish goal. Why should we root for him? Maybe introduce his love interest and establish how he failed at his “love at first sight”, to create some pathos for the underdog
Good Luck DackVigilante!!
Agree with variable. Where are the stakes in this story? Also, how is he given a 2nd chance and why is that relevant to the story?
Is he reluctant to change his image? Does he actually like who he is but he feels like he has to change in order to “fit in”? I think the protagonist has to want to do something otherwise the audience will struggle to get behind him. With that in mind I’d maybe change “reluctant” as the primary adjective. “Shy” or “introverted” might work better. Like variable said, there has to be a reason for us to root for him.
Personally I kinda like the Groundhog Day / Run, Lola, Run school of absolutely no explanation as to how they happen to be reliving these things BUT at the end there has to be an even better ‘why’. ?If you wanted a how, maybe the coolest kid at the school is revealed to be an ex-nerd and he’s passing down the ability (as it was passed down to him) and in the alternate reality the coolest kid didn’t change from being a nerd at all, he learnt to love himself as he is and he is still the coolest kid.
Good luck with it all.
I think it would be a more interesting story if you dumped the magical 2nd chance schtick and have his objective goal to be to overcome the wrong 1st impression he made.? ?It’s? more dramatically challenging — hence, interesting — for a character to overcome an existing problem he created than to get a 2nd chance/reset/reboot to to avoid it altogether.? ? The character arc is more compelling.? A protagonist should always have no choice but to take the hardest path — not an easier one.
Also, there is no need to give the protagonist’s name in a logline.? More important is a character descriptor.
fwiw
“After a horrible first day at school, a humiliated geek is given a chance to relive the day, only to discover perfect is harder work than he thought.”
btw, I wouldn’t tell this in chronological order, I would begin with the lead getting his wish; with the audience only knowing he had the worst first day of all time, then switch back and forth between what he did and his new choices.
The term would be, “In medias res”
On the first day, it is bad, but he meets a girl who kinda likes his weirdness, as the lead ‘fixes’ the day and becomes more and more popular he slowly loses the girl, only to realize what a horrible mistake he has made.
Just a thought
If he’s doing this with magic, what are the parameters of the magic? How many times can he do this? And I dunno, doesn’t seem original.