Unable to cope with his unrequited love, a lonely Filipino seafarer becomes depressed and attempts suicide while at sea.
Alan SmitheePenpusher
Unable to cope with his unrequited love, a lonely Filipino seafarer becomes depressed and attempts suicide while at sea.
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I’ve read your other loglines. You have not shown a complete story yet.
In my interpretation, based on your other loglines, the “All is lost moment” (End of act 2) is when the protagonist confesses his love and is rejected.
From there, the new goal, in the new act (Act 3) may be to commit suicide. That goal can only encompass 25 percent of the story. Act 2 is 50 percent of the story. What is his main goal in this act? A goal needs a visible finish line. (The three-act structure, four-act structure, and five-act structure all follow the same conventions.)
Sample fill in the dots story:
Event from the past instills the lie the character believes. (Backstory)
LIe that the character believes has made them oblivious to their true potential (Status quo)
Until one day something nudges the character into a new direction (Inciting indent)
The character moves into a “New World”, and has decided to chase after a specific visible goal with a definite finish line. With definite consequence for not achieving the goal: Stakes.
Optional: Until an event happens that recontextualizes everything they’ve seen and done. They either choose a similar but different goal or continue to move towards their original goal. (Midpoint Reversal)
A Major set back occurs and the character experiences the “All is lost moment”
Character recovers and moves towards the goal once more, but this time, it is life or death.
Final revelation occurs right before or after the climax, where they can finally let go of the lie that they believed.
(K. M. Weiland, Michael Hauge, John Truby)
This site uses the logline structure of Flawed Protag, Event, Action.
Flawed: the lie that they believe
Event: Inciting Indent
Action: Steps taken to accomplish the visible finish line
The trick is to clearly state the Event/Action. while also conveying the visible finish line, stakes, and if necessary the backstory.
(Someone who is not suffering from depression or another mental illness, would not want to kill themselves because they are rejected by someone they were never really with.)
Don’t let this post discourage you from writing your story. Brainstorm, then post a new logline.