When a young army colonel is haunted by his time on the battlefield, he must deal with the atrocities his past in order to survive life off the field.
Man Down
belindapflaumPenpusher
When a young army colonel is haunted by his time on the battlefield, he must deal with the atrocities his past in order to survive life off the field. Man Down
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Fwiw, here is my take on your logline as vetted through a template I use to vet my own story ideas.
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We are only given the impression of an ongoing subjective problem from the past. That’s okay. But even so, there has to be a specific incident in the present tense of the startup of the script plot that triggers an urgent need to finally, once and for all, deal with the past.
(For an excellent example of how to do that, I commend for your consideration the opening minutes of ?the Oscar winning movie, “Ordinary People” (1980), how Alvin Sargent, one of the masters of screenwriting, adapted the best-selling book about a teenager tormented in the present by tragedy in his past. For which Sargent also won an Oscar, btw.)
Anyway, your logline needs an inciting incident and as a result of that incident a specific objective goal.
Hope this helps.
These types of stories tend work better if the audience can see his motivation, a reason for the effort.
Plus you went a real long way to describe PTSD.
Something like:
A veteran struggling with PTSD struggles to rebuild his life in a hope to get back with his wife.
Craig Grifithi’s re work is good.
What MUST he achieve and why?
Also, the PTSD aspect is not a character flaw, it’s a condition he must deal with – not his fault. His flaw could be arrogance or refusal to accept treatment for the PTSD, not the condition in itself.
A little on the vague side – no great hook which would make me want to see, or anything intriguing about the main character hinted at. Plus, grammatically incorrect, a word missing
I concur with Nir Shelter that PTSD is not a character flaw. ?In fact, I have come to think less in terms of a “character flaw” and more in terms of a “vulnerability”which can be a matter of ?a personality defect or a matter of a physical or psychological disability or a matter of a disadvantage in the context of the protagonist’s struggle.