Categories: Public
Chromosome 21
Best to avoid unnecessary lengthy descriptions and overly wordy sentences in a logline. Get strait to the plot i.e:
A significant event happens to a main character, with a specific flaw, that must take action to achieve a clear objective goal.
How about this?
Two best friends with Down Syndrome learn they've been selected to participate in a controversial project that increases intelligence. But when the friends uncover that the doctor running the program is brainwashing his other test subjects, they must team-up using their new found intelligence to stop the doctor from enslaving the masses. Something like that.
You could explain the Hoogle Hat and who Dr. Hoogle is in your synopsis.
Hope this helps.
Okay very helpful again. How about this:
When a depressed young man with Down Syndrome meets someone online looking for subjects to test his ?cure? on, he enlists the help of his best friend to travel to Florida with the hopes of finding a cure.
In addition to DPGs comments, the inciting incident doesn't appear to have a direct impact on the protagonist (which ever character that ends up being).
A large company announces something is not an event or action done to the MC. A good inciting incident needs to provide a sudden change to the life and world of the MC and force him or her to pursue the goal. In this case the event seems incidental to the MC's life and their resulting actions come across as laboured and unrelated.
How can you directly relate the company's actions and MC to each other?
The logline presents 2 protagonists with 2 disparate goals. A logline ought to spotlight one character as the protagonist and state that protagonist's one objective goal. The other character would be a supporting character to the protagonist's objective goal.
So who is the protagonist? What is his singular objective goal? Who opposes him? And what are the stakes if he fails?
The logline presents 2 protagonists with 2 disparate goals. A logline ought to spotlight one character as the protagonist and state that protagonist's one objective goal. The other character would be a supporting character to the protagonist's objective goal.
So who is the protagonist? What is his singular objective goal? Who opposes him? And what are the stakes if he fails?
Okay these notes have been very helpful. Worked on it a bit more today with all of your notes in mind and this is what I came up with:
After a biotechnology company announces they will be testing a new form of gene therapy, two adversarial classmates team up in an attempt to be a part of the study: one with the hopes of curing his Down Syndrome and the other with the goal of exposing the company to the world as evil.
Thoughts??
I think I get the idea but as a logline it would need some more work.
First, you have to define what the google (ahem, hoogle) hat do, for example to immunize from Alzheimer, or to boost intelligence or to connect to the internet... whatever. It must be something that appears to be good for humanity.
Secondly you should structure the logline to catch the main story in a few words.
Something like:
When two down friends are invited to test a new technology meant to heal their condition, they discover a huge scale mind control plan and decide to sabotage the testing facility and save the world.
Or
When two down friends discover that the new technology meant to heal their condition will be used to mind control the whole population, they decide to sabotage the factory and save the world.
(You can do better than this)
I think I understand why they must be Down people. It's a 'fool triumphant' film (Blake Snyder). And they are two because they are comic buddies. You have to take some creative decisions: is the down condition that allows them to be immunes to the technology or is the technology that boosts their intelligence so that they can understand the mind control plan and act against it? I think the whole movie could be set in the testing facility (it seems to me this is your idea) and that's good.
This sory has potential for me, just work on it.
About the concept, why a dual protagonist plot? Is this vital for the story?
The added description of them having Down Syndrome appears to add little to the plot, why have them both with Down Syndrome? Does this make them brainwashing proof?
As Richiev pointed out the antagonist is unclear. Better to describe the antagonise rather than rely on the reader to interoperate the name as a pre existing character in your story world as this makes for a presumptuous statement in the logline.
Taking over the world is very generic an action because most bad guys want to do the same it is also vague.
What exactly does the antagonist want to do? Look at Kingsmen as a recent example where they had a bad guy who wanted to achieve a very specific goal in his attempt at world dominance.
As for the logline itself best to describe the events and actions not the character's reactions to them. By this I mean instead of:
"Two best friends with Down Syndrome are ecstatic to discover that they have been selected to test Hoogle's new technology: the Hoogle Hat. "
Try:
"After being selected to test a new technology two friends?"
This puts the inciting incident closer to the begin gin of the logline and informs the reader of what the actions and events are in the plot.
Hope this helps.
