Through various interactions with old friends and family at her mom’s funeral, a bitter, middle-aged woman learns that she may have been the most important thing in her mom’s life – even though they haven’t spoken in twenty years.
klee4Logliner
Through various interactions with old friends and family at her mom’s funeral, a bitter, middle-aged woman learns that she may have been the most important thing in her mom’s life – even though they haven’t spoken in twenty years.
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First of all this story sounds like the kind of story I enjoy. A person who has been away from home for a while (And dreads going back) is forced to go home, and in doing so learns something from the process.
Home for the Holidays (1995)
Stealing home (1988)
Something wild (1986)
All these movies are, coming home, movies and are favorites of mine.
1: Your character needs a goal: I only mention this because in your logline the character is passive. Having a goal will change that. For instance, in Stealing Home, the lead character has to come home because someone he loved died. His goal is to figure out where to spread her ashes. In doing so and through a series of flashbacks. He rediscovers his love of baseball. There was the outward goal, spreading the ashes and the inner goal, rediscovering his love.
2: You story needs a hook: Something that grabs the reader. A hook that relates to the character’s goal. In ‘Something wild’, the co-lead character Lulu; a free spirited but vulnerable woman, kidnaps uptight businessman, Charlie, in order to bring a respectable guy home to mother and to her high school reunion. A great hook.
3: Your logline is giving us the conclusion of your story, you shouldn’t do that. Give us the set-up and the outward goal, but leave the conclusion of the inward goal (Discovering she was the most important thing in her moms life) out of the logline.
Good luck with this story, I believe it has potential, I hope this helps you with your logline attempt.
As Richiev said.
Although I think?the discovery about her mother could come?earlier IF it’s the inciting incident for some objective goal she must accomplish as a result of the discovery.? But I can’t tell from the logline whether it’s something she learns at the start of the?story — or the end.
If it’s what she discovers at the end of the story — then yes, it’s a spoiler.? A logline should never give away?the ?ending.
Agreed with Richiev, the first sentence in your logline describes a moment best left for act 3 or end of act 2 – a powerful moment with a potent meaning in which the audience learns through a visual that the MC realises she was wrong all along. Ergo she learns to be a better person and only after that happens she is allowed to achieve her outer goal be it re kindling a lost love or making piece with her own daughter.