When a teenage leader of a small anti-authority vandalism group gets caught by police, he must dodge the officers and steal one of their cars to get away.
NiesyPenpusher
When a teenage leader of a small anti-authority vandalism group gets caught by police, he must dodge the officers and steal one of their cars to get away.
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When a teenage leader of a small anti-authority vandalism group gets caught by police, he must dodge the officers and steal one of their cars to get away or else he must face restitution and possible detention.
It’s a bit wordy in this form. Consolidating it to 30 words or less would be a good start.
Not sure if the “or else” section is really necessary. In this case, I feel it is fairly self explanatory that there are punishments as you have already established they are involved in crime and were caught by police. Subtext is equally as important as listing information and brevity is the name of the game, along with engagement.
If you want to have more stakes it can also be done by fleshing out the event or action further. For example, what if they were caught by brutal/cruel police?
Going back to making an engaging logline, there are some grammatical choices you’ve made which are odd. “When A teenage leader”, for example, seems to imply one of many leaders as if it were a large organised group like a mafia, which is in opposition to you stating “of a SMALL anti-authority vandalism group”. Furthermore, teenage is unnecessarily lengthy and can just be shortened to teen.
At the end of the day, it’s all up to you.
Good luck with writing and revising!
– Joshua L.
Or to clarify with the “or else”; it’s like you’re saying he needs to escape in order to escape.
When a teenage leader of a small anti-authority vandalism group gets caught by police, he must dodge the officers and steal one of their cars to get away to avoid restitution and possible detention.
Usually, if there is a ‘must’ there must be an ‘or else,’ or else the must won’t seem to have stakes.
For example, “…or else face the wrath of his father, who happens to be the police chief.”
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“When he’s caught by the police, the teen leader of a small anti-authority group must escape their clutches or face the wrath of his father, who happens to be the chief of police.”