Before she dies, a terminally ill Irish banker, after keeping her 10-year-old daughter’s birth a secret, must arrange for the young girl to meet her ex-baseball star/American father.

I like it. I have one question, when you say "meet with the father", are you implying the child lives in Ireland and will have to move to the US and live with the father?

Hello David, great question!

One of the best lessons a writer can learn: Everything has a name.

Birds don't fly overhead: A flock of seagulls sores by, A Hawk circles in the distance. A humming bird flutters to and fro.

A car doesn't speed by: A Mazda Miata zooms past, A Ford Explorer motors by. A 73 dodge dart sputters down the road.

A man doesn't sit under a tree: He leans against a weeping willow, he rests on the trunk of an Apple tree. He slouches lazily against an ancient oak.

A guy doesn't play for a baseball team, he plays for the Yankee's or the Mariners.

Someone doesn't have a Terminal illness, They have Cancer or Leukemia.

When you are specific it creates images in the readers heads using very few words. A dog is vague, a black lab is specific. A man is vague, a beer guzzling football player is specific.

Be specific, give everything a name!

Do this and you can say more with less words.

Why cancer? Why a pitcher? Why the Yankee's?

All of those are decisions that take away or impose on the writers voice. More concerning is the mention of the Yankee's. The presence of a baseball team in a story is major sponsorship opportunity that any professional writer would know to leave vacant for at least two reasons: 1.) You (likely) don't have permission to use the Yankee's in your story, either published or unpublished, and 2.) it's an opportunity for a producer to shop product placement that could provide substantial finances for moving the project into production.

The logline needs to be more flexible.

In the end, I believe the story is solid we just keep missing on the logline.

Thank you for all of your help and suggestions. I'll continue to grind away at this. Best regards, Carl!

I think you need to add a complication into the mix, such as him being married. At the moment i can see it going one way or another. Him finding out and agreeing to see her or him flat out refusing. Him agreeing may be boring. But him refusing, would be more interesting, but what is happening that has him not wanting to? What/ who is the antagonistic force keeping father and daughter apart?

Valentin has some interesting ideas. And I can think of more. As I said the premise has rich potential.

But it's your story, carllord, your call on themes and issues to explore. I hope I have contributed some practical points on story structure and abstracting story elements for the purposes of a logline. Best wishes with your writing.

Suggested title or tag line:

Life's a pitch.
Pitching you, pinching me.

DPG is right in that a protagonist must be active and change during the course of the movie.
For that reason, the pitcher makes a better protagonist:
He is initially reluctant to commit. He then fall in love. He has to make a life changing decision. All of that are proof of changes.

Where I slightly disagree with DPG is that they both could be rich. Instead of money and financial future what could be at stake is the emotional future of their daughter. Maybe the Irish belle does not want her daughter be raised by her own mother. The grand mother is a stuck up lady who will raise her grand daughter in a financially secure environment but without love and laughter and make her miserable. Maybe the daughter now regrets not having eloped with the pitcher. However the rejection and his subsequent success has transform the charming poor pitcher into a very successful but douchebag, selfish narcissistic. The Irish belle love and the discovery of having a daughter forces him to change for the better. Also if his daughter is financially secure, having him refusing to take her makes him weak and douchebagey, but not a fully fledged arsehole.

In "Overboard" with Kurtz Russell and Goldie Hawn, a rich spoilt socialite is thrown overboard and become amnesic. A former employee rescue her from the asylum and he and his kids pretend to be her family. In the end, when she recovers, she realised that she'd rather be with the honest, hard working family than with her stuck up, devious husband. It was a funny, family oriented and in part touching movie. You could incorporate the same kind of dilemma: happiness vs luxury lifestyle.

Or you could play on the fact that the superstar pitcher is now broke. Finance is an issue, but maybe not in the same way. He is financially motivated, before being really in love and ready to take responsibility for the daughter. The grand mother ready to offer him money to withdraw any claim on his daughter.

Or he is a failed pitcher, now on the cusp of great success. Life has been a long slugg for him and life is throwing him a curve ball. He has to chose between Success on the pitch with all the trapping of financial glory or love and family off the pitch.

I have also a completely different idea. The Irish belle does not have cancer. Her daughter does. She needs a transplant. After being tricked into a test, the sportman is revealed to be the father and more importantly a match for the girl. However if he goes with the transplant, he will never be able to play against. He has to chose between two legacies: sport (becoming the best NFL/NBA/NHL players) or personal (dad, lover). The Irish banker left him, because he was irresponsible and could never be a good father. Financially yes, but not emotionally.

Hope that all those suggestions have your creative juice flowing. Good luck with the script.

Hey Guys! Here is another logline version for "LIFE'S CURVE," based on DPG's formula (see below) to construct a logline:

"A terminally ill Irish single-mother must reveal to her American baseball star/ex-boyfriend that she is dying with a 10-year-old daughter who is actually his."

DPG states, a logline should present: 1] an inciting incident that forces 2] the protagonist 3]to deal with a new problem here and now; 4] who/what opposes the 5] solution (objective goal) to the new problem; and 6]what is at stake, what is to be gained by success, lost by failure? IOW: why the audience should care?

1. Terminal illness/imminent death.
2. Irish single-mother.
3. Introducing the daughter to her father before she dies.
4. Possibly the father?
5. The mother is hopeful the father will want to adopt/raise his daughter.
6. Can the mother outpace death to make sure her daughter is taken care of.