Okay, I did some googling.? It’s legitimate therapy and a great idea for a story.

However, I personally find the therapist to be the? less interesting of the 2 principal characters.? He’s weak, passive, at 45 still a “momma’s boy”.? He ?doesn’ t seem to be trying that hard to find a woman. In contrast, she is proactive: ?she makes the effort to?seek him out for therapy.??? He doesn’t find her — she finds him.

She’s also more highly motivated, willing to take the greater risk.? She’s the one willing — desperate — ?to endure the pain of the therapy to cure whatever ails her.? In comparison, he doesn’t seem willing to suffer anything.??(Being so passive, maybe he needs a strong dose of his own therapy.)

?I think it needs to be cast with a stronger protagonist with more desperate motivation, more urgent needs.

Have you considered making the woman the focus of the story, the main character? ?Of, if you want to have him as? main character, reverse roles:?cast her as ?the unmarried, middle-aged?therapist (who has given up on every finding true love and a husband.) Cast him as the client who seeks her out for flogging therapy to cure his depression

However you decide to cast it,? by all means,?up the stakes.? What’s the worst thing that can happen to the client (male or female) if the therapy fails? ?He (or she) will commit suicide.? It’s more than a matter of? finding the right marriage partner and having a family.? It’s a matter of life and death.

Say something along the line of:

On the verge of suicide, a depressed middle-aged man ?seeks help from a female psychiatrist who treats clients with a unique form of?therapy: flogging.? (25 words)

Whatever, the hook of the story is not a middle-aged man still living with his mother, looking “to make his life”?with a wife and family.? Nor is?the hook a story about ?a rich business woman.??The hook of the story — what’s going to grab attention — is the flogging.?

Flog the flogging!

As I said, I think you have a great idea for a story, but I suggest it needs refinement and refocusing.? Good luck.

While I concur with most of Nir Shelter’s suggestions, I am not so sure that there is no need to mention that the story is based upon true events.? “Based on true events” can be a selling point?particularly when the plot and/or character?may otherwise seem too incredible.? (Truth being stranger than fiction.)

Residing as I do in the opposite hemisphere about as far from Australia as one can get in a country?where rugby is a? quaint, minor sport, I would be?interested in seeing?the movie knowing that it is based upon a real woman whose? passion for the game was such she dared to defy all the?prejudices?against her sex to play.

(The words underlined indicate the story elements that appeal to me.? None of them relate to the game of rugby. ?I don’t know anything about rugby –?other than the meaning of the word “scrum”, alas .? But my interest is hooked by a true story of? a woman who does the unconventional,? breaks the rules of her social order, who struggles against the expectations and limitations ?imposed upon her by a culture and a game dominated by men. IOW: I sense a story about universal themes that ?transcend any particular time period , country or culture.)

And her?passion for?the game ?is what I would emphasize — her positive emotional motivation?for the game — rather than the negative emotions of anger and anguish (although they certainly may figure in the mix of the character and story).? I think it?should be ?sufficient for a logline that she faces daunting?external obstacles.

fwiw.