When a pirate, a princess, and an outlander discover that their crystal necklaces have magical powers, the three women go on an adventure that leads to saving the world from darkness.
TifaRPenpusher
When a pirate, a princess, and an outlander discover that their crystal necklaces have magical powers, the three women go on an adventure that leads to saving the world from darkness.
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This is an improvement, but it still suffers from some of the same problems, and new problems as the previous version
Logline: “When a pirate, a princess, and an outlander discover that their crystal necklaces have magical powers, the three women go on an adventure that leads to saving the world from darkness.” (31 words)
Inciting incident: “When a pirate, a princess, and an outlander discover that their crystal necklaces have magical powers,” —> This sounds like an inciting incident, but it seems to me it’s more like what I refer to as the ‘Catalyst’. The ‘Catalyst’ is the event before the inciting incident which introduces the protagonist to their new world and the conflict, but it does not force them into it. The discovery of the necklace’s powers doesn’t force them into any conflict. They could choose to do anything. They could rob banks. They could get revenge. They could become supervilllians/heroes. But the inciting incident should be tailor-made for the specific conflict. The specific event is likely when the antagonist(s) attacks at first.
For example, think of Star Wars. The inciting incident may seem like the moment when Luke discovers the message from Princess Leia, but this doesn’t event doesn’t?force?him into the conflict. He just becomes aware of it, and then seeks out Ben Kenobi, making this event part of the Catalyst. The inciting incident comes when Luke, after being urged by Ben Kenobi to learn to use the Force, returns home to find that Stormtroopers have killed his family. It’s at that moment when decides to leave home, he even says it: “I want to come with you to Alderaan. There is nothing here for me now. I want to learn the ways of the Force and become a Jedi like my father.”(emphasis mine)
So, to break it down:
Inciting incident: Luke’s family killed by Empire. —>?This inciting incident forces Luke into a conflict with the Empire, and only?the Empire.
Goal: Help Rebellion destroy Empire(more specifically, destroy Empire’s Death Star.) —> A specific objective, which is still a part of the conflict with the Empire.
Climax: Rebellion’s battle to destroy Death Star.
Protagonist: “a pirate, a princess, and an outlander ” —> Feedback hasn’t changed from previous version.
Goal: “the three women go on an adventure that leads to saving the world from darkness.” —> This does not describe an objective. A logline should describe? specific objective. Look above at the Star Wars example, and also refer back to previous version.
Antagonist: Unclear. —> The logline implies that there is an antagonist, but it doesn’t not imply who, because “the three women go on an adventure that leads to saving the world from darkness.” does not imply a specific character working against them, because this is a vague statement that is not visually descriptive.
I think Richiev’s version is an improvement, and provides a good framework to use for a revision.
Definitely an improvement on the last version. Although, in future, if you could post new versions in the same post as the first (assuming it’s still on the first page of the site) it would be useful. It means readers will be able to see the evolution of the idea and the associated comments.
Ideally, it would be good for one of these characters to be the protagonist. The audience, in order to have an emotional response to the visuals on screen, must empathise with what they are seeing and it’s much easier to do that when you’re only trying to empathise with one character. The protagonist works as the emotional conduit. Most stories that you can think of where there is an ensemble cast still have one leader – Ocean’s 11/Danny Ocean, Stand By Me/Gordy, The Goonies/Mikey, etc.
Why a pirate, princess and outlander? Why not a peasant, a knight and a alchemist? My point is, how you label the character must tell us something about the story. The beauty of going for a single protagonist is it frees up some words for you to give us a characteristic that’ll help us understand who it is we’re following and why.
The adventure they go on shouldn’t lead to the saving the world from darkness – this make it sound accidental. They need to proactively set out to achieve this – the PROtagonist(s) must be PROactive. This is their goal. The goal should also be closely related to the inciting incident – in this case the discovery of magical necklaces. I feel like we need to understand the connection to these necklaces and how they’ll help save the world.
As Richiev has done, give us an antagonist. Who are they working against? Who is trying to cover the world in darkness? More importantly (for a 3 dimensional antagonist) why are they doing this? A good exercise is writing a logline from the antagonist’s POV too to ensure they have a valid and relatable(ish) reason for doing it. Thanos is a perfect example of this! He has a surprisingly rational motive and whilst it’s brutal, there’s a logic to it that’s hard to deny.
Hope this helps.
This logline attempt of yours is an improvement over your last attempt.
You might want to change it a little bit though.
I am not actually sure of the details of your story so your logline might end up being different.
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“When the world is enveloped in darkness, a (Runaway?) princess and her two compatriots must use a magic necklace to defeat the (Evil sorcerer?) responsible.”