by EverStride · Initiate · 60 pts
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Categories: Fantasy
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?Is helping? constitutes a stalled-in-the-water phrase. A protagonist should be proactive. His objective goal should be framed as something he proactively and urgently struggles toward, not stroll.
And in the ?logline the stakes should be implicitly obvious and the struggle urgent. In this case, what's to be lost ?or suffered if they don't reach their homeland? Is it a life or death issue for everyone involved? ?IOW: What do you want the audience to worry about?
The stakes establish the significance of the struggle ?for viewers. The dramatic job of the stakes is to engage the emotions of viewers in the struggle. To make them care, to want the protagonist to succeed.
>>do I have to have a focused enemy?
Yep. The dramatic job of the antagonist is to make the audience fear the protagonist will fail. ?Easier to do with a fearsome, loathsome flesh-and-blood body than a disembodied, non-visual sentiment. ?So you need a proxy figure, a visible, specific flesh and blood antagonist, embodying the general and prejudice and hostility.
(Movies are a visual medium. When I'm writing a logline, I imagine that movie technology hasn't advanced in 100 years, that I'm writing for a silent film. ?Dialogue cards are few and succinct. ?I have no choice; the story must be conveyed through visual elements: people, objects, locations, action. So the logline must describe only what can be visualized.)
>>>the ?entity? is just a very curious toy,
Why would a character exert all that effort, put his life at risk for ?curious toy?? He may not fully apprehend it's potency, but there has to be something about it that he MUST have, that provides sufficient incentive for him to put his life at risk for outcasts he doesn't even like or sympathize with.
fwiw
As payment for?helping a?group of small weasel-like creatures cross the?hostile continent to reach their homeland, a weathered ex soldier receives?a seemingly simple toy that turns out to be a?mysterious and?powerful entity he accidentally unleashes through his carelessness.??Now he must stop it at all costs before it destroys the Peace Accord signed after the last great Hell Break of 2999.
As DPG wrote a reluctant hero is often a better approach, explained well by Chris Vogler in The Writer's Journey, as it imbues the decision the MC makes with significance and adds weight to their burden. However, the hero's reluctance doesn't need to be specified in the logline - it's not directly related to the plot and almost a given that there will be some reluctance.
EverStride:
It's SOP for a protagonist to resist the "Call to Adventure" entailed the inciting incident, for him to be a reluctant protagonist. ?In fact, it makes for a stronger character arc if he initially rejects the call.
Even so, there has to be a credible reason, an incentive, a compelling event for overcoming his reluctance and pushing him across the thresh hold and on the journey.
Recall that in ?"Star Wars: A New Hope", Luke Skywalker rejects Obi-wan's call to join the rebellion. ?His excuse is his uncle & aunt; they are depending upon him, he's got to get back to his chores on the farm. ?But when they are killed by soldiers from the Empire, that excuse is removed. More than that, he's motivated: ?family blood that's been shed. ?Luke now has skin in the game.
Re: the setup for "Lord of the Rings": ?Bilbo is given the ring , sent on his journey ?without ?(IMHO) acquiring any compelling skin in the game. Except his "Call" comes after a prologue that dramatizes the importance of the ring to the audience. ?So even if Bilbo initially doesn't have skin in the game, doesn't appreciate the full significance of the ring, ?the audience has been tipped off.
Also, ?"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" had an advantage Lucas's story didn't have -- and neither does yours. To wit, the saga ?had already been pre-sold, test marketed for movies, if you will, ?as a very popular book trilogy. ? The general story had a large and dedicated following eager to see the?saga made into a movie.
IMHO: I think the way George Lucas incited his protagonist's journey is superior, a better model to consider. ? Because, to repeat, your script like Lucas's 1st Star Wars script doesn't have that built-in advantage of a pre-sold audience familiar with the characters and story.
One final thought: ?think franchise. ?Because that is what ?movie makers are looking for in original scifi/fantasy stories, that they ?have potential to become origin stories ?for sequels. Can you frame your story so that while it solves the immediate dramatic problem, it leaves the door ajar for sequels? Is the world in our story ?capacious enough to hold further adventures for your protagonist?
Regards and best wishes with your story
EverStride:
It's SOP for a protagonist to resist the "Call to Adventure" entailed the inciting incident, for him to be a reluctant protagonist. ?In fact, it makes for a stronger character arc if he initially rejects the call.
Even so, there has to be a credible reason, an incentive, a compelling event for overcoming his reluctance and pushing him across the thresh hold and on the journey.
Recall that in ?"Star Wars: A New Hope", Luke Skywalker rejects Obi-wan's call to join the rebellion. ?His excuse is his uncle & aunt; they are depending upon him, he's got to get back to his chores on the farm. ?But when they are killed by soldiers from the Empire, that excuse is removed. More than that, he's motivated: ?family blood that's been shed. ?Luke now has skin in the game.
Re: the setup for "Lord of the Rings": ?Bilbo is given the ring , sent on his journey ?without ?(IMHO) acquiring any compelling skin in the game. Except his "Call" comes after a prologue that dramatizes the importance of the ring to the audience. ?So even if Bilbo initially doesn't have skin in the game, doesn't appreciate the full significance of the ring, ?the audience has been tipped off.
Also, ?"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" had an advantage Lucas's story didn't have -- and neither does yours. To wit, the saga ?had already been pre-sold, test marketed for movies, if you will, ?as a very popular book trilogy. ? The general story had a large and dedicated following eager to see the?saga made into a movie.
IMHO: I think the way George Lucas incited his protagonist's journey is superior, a better model to consider. ? Because, to repeat, your script like Lucas's 1st Star Wars script doesn't have that built-in advantage of a pre-sold audience familiar with the characters and story.
One final thought: ?think franchise. ?Because that is what ?movie makers are looking for in original scifi/fantasy stories, that they ?have potential to become origin stories ?for sequels. Can you frame your story so that while it solves the immediate dramatic problem, it leaves the door ajar for sequels? Is the world in our story ?capacious enough to hold further adventures for your protagonist?
Regards and best wishes with your story
Thanks again for your input. Seems I got at the wrong end of?"Test your logline here before spending months in development"?and I see why. Also I see that the problem is not so much to find good logline, but rather to reshape the?story itself.?So I'm starting to?write?new script based on the previous two?where?I can include the missing elements such as an enemy symbolising the general bad sentiment towards my creatures (I'm trying first with human-based racist empire) or event which will bring up the stakes.
However I wonder if is possible to have a bit reluctant hero who is initially just dragged?by the events and accepts the job from feeling of pity and not appreciating the difficulties ahead, but who grows during the story and then he takes seriously the task to deliver alive his clients. May be a bit like Bilbo from Hobbit?
I posted already couple of loglines, where I?think I addressed some of these issues.
