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kpetrakis01Logliner
When her prestigious legal firm goes under for corruption, a successful lawyer finds herself reliving her troubled childhood when she reluctantly accepts a job as legal aid family court lawyer.
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So this is a TV series, not a feature film?
A thought.? If the firm was dissolved because of corruption, is it credible that she was utterly clueless, had no idea of the malfeasance?? Or is it likely she deliberately looked the other way, didn’t ask probing questions?? That while she was not legally culpable, she did compromise her values in pursuit of the big bucks?
If that’s in the backstory then would it make sense that her legal aid work is an atonement for her moral failure?? Could this is a redemption story?
fwiw
I am intrigued that the protagonist is female and I think the revised version clarifies matters.?
But I’m still not sure what the story is about.? What is her specific objective goal?? Prove her innocence? Defend a juvenile delinquent?? Not get killed?
Of course, a protagonist can be juggling? multiple problems, but a plot is about one dramatic problem, the most important one? The one that is the organizing, unifying principle for the entire script.? ?And the logline describing that plot should be framed in terms of that specific, singular, unifying dramatic problem.
>> “reliving her troubled childhood”
That relates to a subjective problem.? But loglines focus on objective problems.
And loglines? focus on the present and future (in terms of the objective goal) — not the past.? Think of the protagonist as sitting in the driver’s seat of a plot vehicle,? She may being pursued by events from her past.? Even so, she can’t drive the plot vehicle looking all the time at what is pursuing her through the rear view mirror.? She has to look out the front window — at the present and towards the future with only occasional and short glances through the rear view mirror.
A logline is about what she’s driving toward out the front window — not what she’s driving? from as glimpsed in the rear view mirror.
Surely a lawyer who’s been arrested for corruption would have been immediately disbarred? How is she allowed to practice?
In your new version… who’s trying to kill her??? To me that came out of nowhere.
I think the reader can understand the story from this logline.
However, I do agree with kid_gokuu about the lead character being reactive. But the idea is solid.
I would probably drop the part about reliving her troubled childhood unless of course, she worked as a legal aid family court lawyer when she was a kid. (or at least show how her childhood and working as a legal aid family court lawyer connect)
I think you should try to add stakes to the struggle the protagonist takes on. In its current state, it feels as if the protagonist is reacting to the situation she finds herself in by reliving this trauma. If you can show how the stakes involved effects her struggle, you’ll have a stronger concept.