Logliner
Posted: 2015-09-29T02:52:46+10:00 In:

When a survivor of a train crash disrupts her life, a young woman must overcome her circle?s hostility and cope with the abortion she denied for ten years

When a survivor of a train crash disrupts her life, a young woman must overcome her circle?s hostility and cope with the abortion she denied for ten years
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    6 Reviews

    1. Samurai

      There is absolutely nothing specific in this logline, everything is vague (“dramatic circumstances”, “path forward”).?What were those circumstances? What does/must she do to overcome her trauma, what is her specific path forward?

      Usually, the protag’s change is catalyzed?by an inciting incident (until then it was business as usual, which in her case means living with unresolved trauma).

      So something like “Still traumatized by her painful past, a battered woman…”

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    2. Logliner

      Let the reader work out whether it is dramatic or not.

      Can you describe the woman with something other than young? What life does she seek? What causes her to change path? What forces her to deal with the anguish? What is her anguish?

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    3. Logliner

      Earlier version:
      Under dramatic circumstances, a young woman must overcome hostility and cope with the trauma she has denied for ten years to find the path toward the life she seeks.

      New version:
      When a strange survivor of a train crash disrupts her life, a young woman must overcome her circle’s hostility and cope with the abortion?she denied for ten years.

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    4. Mentor

      Hello,
      true, one of the most common problems in loglines is that they are not specific enough.
      I think this could be?a step in the process of writing a logline, to start with a vague structure, then fill it with details that make sense.
      As a step in a process, I find it not bad.

      I want to say also that it’s easier to detect problems in someone else’s logline than in your own. It happens to me to feel like I wrote a killer logline, then I read the critics and I say “how didn’t?I see this myself!?”.

      Under dramatic circumstances -> to be specified

      young woman -> the description of the main character is too vague

      hostility -> to be specified

      the trauma -> to be specified

      for ten years -> in my opinion this is a useless detail… why not 15 years, or 5 years? This would not affect the story in a meaningful way.

      the path toward the life she seeks -> too vague. If I must pick the lowest point of this logline, it would be this one, because this is a readymade sentence, I feel like I read it already.

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    5. Mentor

      I would ban the word “strange” from the logline vocabulary. You can tell what is strange instead.

      “a young woman” is still too vague. Is there anything in the character which is compelling and organic with the story?

      I can’t see the logic between the inciting event (what put the story in motion) and the story. How a survivor from a train crash can have some infleunce on her circle and her psychology? The logic must be clear.

      “circle hostility” is still vague.

      ten year -> why not 5? 15? the detail is not really relevant.

      I encourage you to work on a solid logic that links all the elements and avoid everything that is not clearly linked to the plot. For exemple, you said a “train accident” – why not a car? no difference right? so this detail have no interest. You must find which caracteristic or action of this?survivor is actually relevant to the plot. Or make it relevant.

      For exemple:

      “when a survivor of a train crash starts stalking a lonely train?conductor, she must cope with his madness if she wants to find her son who disappeared?in the same accident”

      maybe the son doesn’t really exists and this is her path to cope with her denied abortion, the survivor is the catalyzer.

      You don’t have to spoil the suprises but you need to be coherent, logic, organic. If you forget to be coherent you will produce meaningless loglines like “when a dinasaur kill her dentist a young antiques?dealer must fight his husband to save the earth from an grasshopper invasion”.

      I suggest also to ask yourself what interests you in your logline and build around it. When you write a movie you spend several month on it and if you’re not “in love” with something in your logline it will be very very difficult to write a good script.

      I hope this help! ?good luck!

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    6. Logliner

      Hahaha FFF,

      Don’t worry about?the script. It’s written and it already won some awards. I’m still polishing it while trying to sell it.

      Howhever, as English is not my native language, i may have some difficulties for finding the best sentence?sometimes…

      You’re right about the catalyzer, but he’s not the train engineer. Please read my comment to Priggy above.

      :o)

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