Temporal Insanity
"An 86 year old man relives his past lives through hypnotic regression, but in one fateful session, a blurry vision shows him his possible next life and that his current one is about to end soon and the strange man from an unknown agency has to make the toughest moral decision."
Share
Hey mate – from the first sentence I can tell this is not actually a logline, it’s more of an elevator pitch. Check out this section of the site for pointers: https://loglines.org/howto/
Who is your protagonist? The 86 year old man about to die? Or the Strange Agency Man?
What is the event that kicks off this story?
What is the action that sees us through the majority of Act 2?
Reliving his past lives through hypnotic regression, a dying (occupation)** is hunted by a unknown agent.???
If the agent is making the toughest? moral decision, this makes your protagonist passive. ??
The opening two lines are known as tag lines?. They usually reserve this for marketing purposes.
Nicolasandrewhalls is on the money !!
Hope this helps. 😀
??Tor?
I think it’s very clear who’s who in this. Just because someone has to make a decision doesn’t mean they’re the protagonist. We’re trying to peak the interest aren’t we? I put it into the readers mind that a decision has to be made from the questions at the beginning and then reminded them again at the end. Just because one character has to make the decision, the other one could have the conflict about it, right?
This may be better for the back cover of the book is what I’m gathering.
Also, in all of these comments you’re assuming the plot… and by that notion I guess I actually did my job because it means you’re wondering about it.
Let’s talk about the ideas also and not just the mechanics of writing them. The mechanics or writing these lines is OK, but putting it into rigid rules, especially something only a few lines long is kind of weird. If I look at the reasons to do these lines, is that it is to quickly pitch an idea to someone interested in further helping you develop your work. Now, what you’re expecting here is a plot synopsis.. I’m guessing? You’re talking about multiple acts in a movie in only a short paragraph.
Many of the loglines here are not engaging and interest me to know more and frankly, give me less information than I have just given you. And the lot of them are 30 words or less.
“While reliving past lives through hypnotic regression, an 86 year man gets a forbidden glimpse at a future life and becomes the target of a ruthless time agent out to kill him.”
Firstly, I didn’t say they were the protagonist, their actions make your protagonist act passively. Secondly, You may think it clever but your questions are irrelevant, both at the start and end.
Thirdly, what else would we be assuming? It’s a story!
You claim to have done your job with “wondering about it” but the truth is personally I could care less. I highly recommend you read this http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php
Head over to the “How to” section: https://loglines.org/howto/
It will answer your questions about what is a logline.
“… pitch an idea to someone interested…” YOU ANSWER YOUR OWN QUESTION “… interest me to know more…”
Not quite what is actually happening, but I like it.
The hyperlink Tor Dollhouse posted to the Village Voice article is the god’s-honest-bitter truth about the biz.
>> but putting it into rigid rules, especially something only a few lines long is kind of weird.
I’m not a slave to the one sentence rule as inviolable as long as the sentences are logically/dramatically linked. Nor a believer that there is one standard formulation for a logline )”When W happens, Y must X [before or else] Z”).
But a 51 word logline for “Temporal Insanity” is the kiss of death in terms of getting Hollyweird suits to read the logline, let alone the script. Being a data wonk, I have been compiling and studying a list of loglines for movies that actually got produced. Of the 412 loglines collected so far, the average word length is 23 words. 67.1% of the 412 loglines are 25 words or less. The longest logline is 39 words.
Nice Data wonking dpg!
BTW: I make an extra effort to find long loglines, lest my own preference for short loglines skews the data. So I think my sample is representative.
Great article, Tor — Haven’t laughed that much at post in a very long time… …”I did more rewrites on that f*#$ing e-mail than I did on my last three studio projects….” — simply awesome. All good truths.