You may rightly assume from my questions that I am blithely ignorant of the inner (and outer workings) of professional chefs.

You should also assume anyone else reading your logline will likewise be an ill-informed outsider in spite of the of halo of celebrity that now suffuses the profession. Ergo, the roles, motivations and goals driving the plot have to be clear to the ignorante.

And I still have no idea of how her desire to “salvage her disgraced career” or “must redeem herself” translates into a well-defined plot with a specific objective goal. All I see is a situation with dramatic possibilities. She “manages” to secure a job with a star. Well, that’s a 1st Act. But a logline should describe a plot and a plot is about what happens after the 1st Act. After “managing” to work for the star, what does she want to accomplish in the 2nd Act? What is her plot goal? What is at stake? That is, what does she stand to lose if she fails to do whatever it is she must do?

And critically, who is her antagonist, her nemesis? Who is actively and intentionally working to make sure she fails?

If you use their names, there is no way readers are not going to associate your story with Shakespeare’s play. As I certainly did . This raises certain expectations as to what your story is about. And then when you say the semblance to Shakespeare’s play is only ‘superficial’ — well, now I’m really confused. Now your logline creates the impression of a bait and switch. Which, of course, is not your intention. So, yeah, it’s probably better to drop the names.

Finally, what makes Shakespeare’s play a classic is that it is about a universal theme — love, specifically about love arising in the context of hate. The theme and resulting conflict has universal appeal — it’s something people can identify and empathize with across all cultures and all time. More important than whether your story has any semblance to the play is whether, like Shakespeare, you are writing about a universal theme, a universal human predicament.