Being helpful entails being honest. ??I call it as I see it.

(And I could be wrong — totally blind on this one. And if I am, if you prove me wrong, be sure to let me know so that I can be the 1st one to congratulate you on selling your script .)

I evaluate loglines by several criteria: ? ?1] Structure; ? 2] Hook; 3] Topic; ?4] Marketability.

Structure: fairly good. ?And while it is necessary for a logline to be well-structured, that by itself isn’t sufficient. ?Other factors come into play besides structure.

Hook: ? What is it? ?This is a big one for me. ?Other than sort of imitating the template of “Shakespeare in Love”, what makes this romance stand out from the herd? ?How does this story innovate rather than merely imitate? ?What’s the hook in the logline?

Topic: ?I would give it a passing grade if, IMHO, it were reasonably “inspired by true events”. ?But …

Marketability: ?To repeat, it’s inevitably going to be compared to “The Last Days of Night” which is already pre-production. ? Just saying.

fwiw

>>>And I should care because?? I am not interested in writing a historical or faithful version of Edison?s life.

Then?don’t ?characterize it as “historical” when ?by your own statement it isn’t. ?Loglines should inform, not mislead.

You can certain liberties with ?historical characters, but stories loosely based on them have to ?reckon with inconvenient historical facts. ?In this case, an inconvenient fact is that the first major World’s Fair in the US ?worthy of the appellation was the Centennial Exposition of 1876. ?Which would make Edison almost 30 years old — hardly a “young man”. ?And another inconvenient fact was that he had been married since 1871 and by 1876 ?would have been a father. ?(And he met her when she was working in one of his labs.)

One factor “Shakespeare in Love” had in its favor is that there is so little known about Shakespeare; consequently, the screenwriters had a broad and empty canvas on which to paint a plot as suited their imaginations and dramatic purpose. ?In contrast, we know quite a bit about Edison which constrains any story that presumes to improvise on the man and the legend.

I think the more appropriate reference for the tack you wish to take is the smash hit musical “Hamilton”,?lyrics and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda. ?Yes, it takes creative liberties, but it stays fairly faithful to the chronology and the actual rivalries and conflicts Hamilton encountered. ?No synthesizing of an entirely fictional plot was necessary.

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