When people in town start disappearing, a young orphan woman, searching for her parents is attacked by an alien, she discovers her father’s true origins may not be from earth.
EricaSamurai
When people in town start disappearing, a young orphan woman, searching for her parents is attacked by an alien, she discovers her father’s true origins may not be from earth.
Share
Is the inciting incident the town folk’s murder or her being attacked by aliens?
Loglines are about one plot, the ‘A’ plot, so best to describe one inciting incident.
Secondly, as a result of her discovering that she is part alien, what does she need to achieve?
The answer to this will be her goal, which is a crucial plot element currently missing in the logline.
You still haven’t told us what she must do about the Aliens.
As Richiev said. ?Seems she’s got more urgent, immediate issues to deal with than her father’s lineage — like?mere survival.
But when does it lead to the discovery? ?When does she find out?
The aliens are gonna do what aliens have gotta do whether or not she knows the truth about her father, right? ?So what difference will it make for her to know the truth?
Whatever it is, it has to be more than just a shocking surprise. ??It can’t be oh-that’s-interesting, ?or nice-to-know information. ?It must be need-to-know information. ?Information?that defines the story behind the story and what ?the protagonist must do. ?It defines her objective goal.
In “Edge of Tomorrow”, the Tom Cruise character makes the shocking discovery that his life has been rebooted after being killed on the beach fighting the alien invasion. ?That moment occurs 25 minutes into the film. ?But the discovery makes no sense to him nor the audience — he keeps repeating the invasion, getting killed and resurrected day after day after day.
?At around the 40 minute mark, he finds out what is really going on — ?the story behind the story. ?And the discovery also informs him what he must do to break out of the hellacious cycle ?of fighting and dying, and living again to fight and die another day… and another… and another.
?The discovery determines his objective goal.
So here is a possible logline for the story:
When a ?soldier is killed battling space aliens only to be resurrected to fight and die day after day, he discovers he must fight and die every day until he is skilled enough to defeat the aliens.
(38 words)
Notice that the logline doesn’t hide the discovery. ?Rather, it lays it out for everyone to see.
?Why?
Because it’s the hook. ?It’s ?the “sizzle”, the “secret sauce”. ?It’s what makes the story stand out from all the other movies about unfriendly aliens.
What’s the hook in your story? ?What differentiates it from all the other movies about unfriendly aliens? ?What’s the “sizzle”, the “secret sauce”? ?Whatever it is, it needs to be in the logline.
fwiw
Hi Erica
Super powers are not a new thing, and fall well and truly under a?trope umbrella. Look at al the super heroes movies of the last decade, most of the characters discover that they have special powers and then learn how to use them to save the community. Why they have powers or how they got them is less relevant, what is relevant is what they do with them.
The fact that your main character?is part alien is less interesting than how she fights the aliens, once she choses to fight them that is. However, as DPG said, human fighting bad aliens is not original enough and needs a “hook” or twist of some sort. I believe that’s why District 9 was such a success, it presented a fresh take on the, all too familiar, aliens v humans paradigm.
How did the alien attack her? Physically, verbally, her character, her ethics…? Is there any interaction between her and the alien after that? If so, maybe something that clues us in to the nature of their relationship would be good. Other than that, I like it. It has me intrigued.
And as Nir Shelter pointed out, there’s a whole franchise genre dedicated to stories about characters with special powers. ?What makes hers so special? ?And what specifically must she learn to do with them?
Or else. ?What will happen to her and her world if she fails?