When a Hollywood actor, trying to escape his notoriety, takes a break in a small Australian town, he forms a bond with a local girl and must decide if he wants to return to his extraordinary but superficial life.

First of all, I want to commend you for hanging in there with your story, continuing to revise and polish your logline.? You have a tough nut to crack because of the particular challenges for your story’s primary genre, which I believe I am correct in defining as romance.

Romances are stories about relationships, but the conventional paradigm for a logline is to frame the story in terms of action, not relationship. A logline is expected to describe? action?the main character takes, not how a main character relates (“bonds”) to another character. Action is the text of a logline; relationship is subtext. For some time, I myself have been wrestling with the problem of how to give relationship stories an action-oriented framework. Is it always possible?? Are there exceptions to the general rule?? And if so what are the exceptional rules?

Spoiler alert:? I don’t have definitive answers. But I’ve got a few randomized suggestion for your consideration.? I hope at least one of them is useful.?? I would like to start by pigeonholing the elements of your logline into acts:

Act 1 (Setup–>Inciting Incident–>Objective Goal)
When a Hollywood actor, trying to escape his notoriety, takes a break in a small Australian town…

Act 2 (Dramatic problem–>Complications)
…he forms a bond with a local girl …

Act 3 (Crisis–>Resolution/ Denouement)
… and must decide if he wants to return to his extraordinary but superficial life.

As I said, the conventional logline formula requires that we frame the story in terms of action.? That is, the main character must overcome opponents and obstacles to DO something (not decide something — but DO something) before it’s too late — or else. (The stakes:? what the character stands to gain if he succeeds, ?lose or suffer if he fails).

Unfortunately,? this logline is not action-oriented in its framework.? As a romance, a story about relationship, the actor “forms a bond” with a local girl. (Bond? Bond?? What happened to old-fashioned love?) Eventually he has to make a decision.

But that’s not until the 3rd Act. Taking this logline at face value, for the duration of Act 2, for 60 minutes of screen time, he must DO… he must DO… well what?? What?must he DO? for 60 minutes before he has to decide?

Now then. Is it possible to?cast ?this love story within an action-oriented framework?

I offer for your consideration a logline for the film “Labor Day” (2013).? The film is essentially a love story; it’s about a relationship.? Even so, out of that?relationship comes a plot.? Their love them motivates them to conceive a plan, an objective goal.? The characters don’t just “bond”, they?do ?something about their “bonding”. Consequently, it is possible to write a logline for “Labor? Day’ where the?love story is defined in terms of the action that results. Here’s my take:

After an escaped convict forces a divorced mother to hide him from the police, they fall in love.? Now they plot to flee to Canada to start a new life.? (32 words)

Objective goal: flee to Canada to start a new life together.
Obstacles/Opposition:? the police, who are swarming the area.
Stakes:? freedom for him. Love and happiness for both.

A similarity between this film and your story (as I understand it) is that both begin with a major character pursuing a negative goal.? In Act 1, the convict just wants to escape, get out of town. His plans – objective goal — for the future are vague at best. (Just, so it seems,like your Hollywood actor whose negative goal is to “escape his notoriety”.)

As a result of the relationship that develops between the convict and the mother, his negative goal transforms into a positive one:? start over with a new life in Canada with someone he loves.

Now then. As a result of the actor’s relationship with the local girl, what becomes his positive goal? What becomes his objective goal? (Deciding what to do is dramatic inflexion point–not an objective goal.)

And a ‘superficial’ thought:

If the Hollywood actor already realizes in Act 1 that his ‘extraordinary’ life is? ‘superficial’, what is his character arc?? The usual character arc would be for him not to realize that his ‘extraordinary’ life is ‘superficial’ until the end of Act 2/ start of Act 3′– an epiphany he has thanks to his relationship with the girl. (The primary function of a love interest, to nurture the character arc.)

And another concern I have with ‘superficial’ is that it seems to relate to the actor’s subjective need but not his objective goal. And the general rule is that loglines are about objective goals — not subjective needs.? What’s the difference?

Well, my objective goal tonight is to win the US$900,000,000 Powerball lottery.? But my subjective need is to learn to be content with what I have, realize that money can’t buy happiness. Which need, of course, I would rather not embrace. Hence, another distinction:? an objective goal is what a character realizes he MUST DO and WANTS TO DO by the end of Act 1. A subjective need is what a character MUST DO — but DOESN’T REALIZE and DOESN’T WANT TO DO until at least Act 3.

I hope some of this is has helped. And best wishes with your writing.? Now, if you will excuse, me I must put on my lucky t-shirt, offer up prayers and incense to the gambling gods…

fwiw