When a woman is killed after stealing a memory, a washed up detective tracks her killer, who begins to taunt him with more victims and memories.
Alan SmitheePenpusher
When a woman is killed after stealing a memory, a washed up detective tracks her killer, who begins to taunt him with more victims and memories.
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The mechanics of your story world are hard to grasp from this logline — perhaps it’s worth leaning more heavily on the human and easy to grasp aspect of the story. (Detective must catch a killer).
That being the case:
– it’s not clear how the initial murder is connected personally to the detective in question. It just feels like the character’s job … and even if that’s the case, it’s not like there is anything at stake if the protagonist fails in his goal beside faceless victims. (For instance, could the protagonist be about to be kicked off the force, and he needs to do this job well in order to keep his job?) Or — was the victim somehow linked to the protagonist?
– it’s not clear WHY the antagonist is taunting this particular cop. What beef does he have with him? Why taunt him?
>>>the death of his wife and daughter
Spielberg has been there, done that with the protagonist? in “The Minority Report”.? What’s the point of having those ghosts in his memory bank, anyway?? To provide a pseudo-psycho explanation for his addiction to other people’s memories?? If so, IMHO, it’s a shallow, mucho overused and abused gimmick.?
To repeat; I think you have a great story hook.? Please dig deeper. (My 2.5 cents worth.)
>>>?detective saves one girl by accident
Can’t he save her on purpose – or he saves her because the killer lets it happen? In this kind of story I feel like nothing should be accidental.
>>> eventually the killer gets too cocky and the detective finally captures him.
I want to see a supreme battle of wits and the detective bests the killer somehow but you feel like it could go either way. Getting caught because he was too cocky makes the ending anticlimactic because the antagonist failed rather than the protagonist won. I hope that makes sense. Think about the climax of Silence of the Lambs – Clarice is in pitch darkness and even then, the slightest noise (cocking the gun) caused by Buffalo Bill means she was able to shoot him. He had the upper hand and she still won… she’s that good. He didn’t just accidentally fall down his own hole – she bested him! That’s what the audience wants.
>>>The killer begins to allude to the detectives own memories of his dead wife and child, which sends him out of control.
Did the killer kill his wife and child or was he involved in any way? Or is he using that suggestion to manipulate the detective? Introduce this connection in the logline.
The detective being addicted to these dreams needs to be in the logline because, as dpg said, it’s his character flaw that can easily tie him to the rest of the story. Play up the idea of memories as drugs – that’s your hook. Make sure that is what people take away from your logline.
I like the general premise but I’m not sold (yet) on the plot as pitched in the logline.
If “washed up” because he’s addicted to stolen memories, then just say so.? Don’t leave us guessing.
If the detective is a memory addict, then it seems to me that the inciting incident should arise from his habit, his character flaw.? Like, a stolen memory contains an clue (say in the background) to an unsolved case.
Whatever, the premise is a fertile one.? It creates so many avenues for a plot to go down.? That’s a good thing.? Explore them all and then settle on one for the script and logline.? Leverage to the story hook to the max, a world? where a black market exists to “shoot up” on other people’s memories.
Leverage it well enough and I think this could become a franchise.??
fwiw
Okay, what I am about to say is a bit dark, but following up on your premise.
What if… There was a black market for ‘snuff’ memories.
A killer murders his victim while recording his memories/VR of?committing the murder.
People (sick people) buy this and get to experience the act of taking a life.
The detective’s daughter is the latest victim and the lead
must navigate a dark ‘blade runner’ type of future trying to
catch the killer before he makes a new memory.
I could even picture the end of the movie where the detective catches the killer
Then puts on the recording device and kills the killer sending out the memory for all the killer’s clients to see.
What’s the Inciting incident? Her death or his tracking down the antagonist?
maybe condense it into “after tracking down?(??a memory criminal/?the man who kills for memories of his victims??), a washed up detective must _____________
What becomes his GOAL?
As mikepedley85 said,
1. make it personal.. and 2. elaborate on the nature of crime. Give us these two details, to let us root for your protagonist
Good Luck Daryl Rogerson!
What is the goal of the antagonist? I get that the protagonist wants to catch the killer (something that should be made more personal – up the stakes) but why does the killer taunt him? In Se7en, it?s all part of John Doe?s plan. There needs to be a connection between the two. There also needs to be clarification on how he?s being taunted. Does the detective (who could never have kids) see the children of the killer?s victims playing in his dreams? Does he see their memories of being kidnapped before they?ll be killed so he has clues to where their being held thus giving him a chance to save them.
What?s so important about the memory stolen? You need to tie the inciting incident to the rest of the story too.
Hope this helps.