stevecleary:

I think you have the kernel for a very interesting human relationship story.? Sea glass is a great dramatic prop.

However, I’m not entirely sold on the psychological dynamics.

Since you categorize it as a “coming of age” story, I’m guessing the protagonist is in her early teens.? Even if she is in her late teens, the task? the story assigns her is, imho,? way beyond the psychological capacity of a teenage mind. That she would want to maintain a cease fire between her mother and grandfather — yes, that’s believable.? Because that’s what kids consciously and unconsciously do.? That is how they cope in dysfunctional families.

But coping with a problem is not the same as solving it? Maintaining a cease fire is not the same as effecting a reconciliation.? A reconciliation takes wisdom, insight, and understanding — skills that develop with age, that accumulate over time by trial and error,? I think such skills are far beyond the ken of teenage minds, even precocious ones, because their lives are so, well, unlived at that point. Their minds haven’t “banked” much experience. And because (as we now know from advancements in neuroscience) their cognitive development is still a work in progress. The prudential executive functions of the neocortex don’t fully come on line? until the mid-20’s.

That said, it is quite realistic that the girl would use the sea glass as a way to reach out to him.? Not because she wants to end the family feud; she doesn’t know how and doesn’t even know fully why they are estranged to begin with.? Rather because she takes an interest in his hobby and develops a liking for the old geezer in spite of his eccentricities and in spite of her mother’s hostility and resentment.? From her bonding with him develops the alchemy that leads to an eventual reconciliation between the generations on either side of her.

IOW:? the reconciliation? emerges as the unintentional consequence of her initial intentional objective goal.? (And loglines are about conscious, intentional goals, not about unconscious, unintentional denouements.)

Finally, I would like to suggest you might want to dig deeper into the possibilities of a mutually dependent doublebind relationship between her mother and her grandfather.? The mother needs him for economic survival (dammit!) — his pension, for a rent-free place to stay.? He needs her for his physical survival (dammit!); he’s too infirm to live alone and just lost his driver’s license after a car accident that was his fault.? Et cetera.? They? hate each other — and they need each other.

Whatever, best wishes with your story.

fwiw

Clever, Richiev.? A better title, perhaps would be “A Christmas Carole”.

The backstory of the logline is that mother and son became estranged.? What is the wedge issue that drove them apart?? That’s what the story is about, what all the haunting must drive him to resolve?

But it has to be about more than mending the past.? It must be an issue he needs to resolve in order to live his life going forward.? If he fails to resolve the issue, his life is doomed to an unhappy ending. (As was the case for Scrooge.)

The fundamental problem I see with this logline is that it sets up a “rear view mirror” plot; that, is a story line where the focus is on the past.? But plots are — or should be — about how people are to live looking forward in time.? Just as you cannot drive a car forward by looking solely through the rear view mirror, a plot cannot advance satisfactorily with a protagonist whose gaze is fixated on the past.? Ultimately, what matters is where the protagonist must go in the future, not where he failed to go in the past.

fwiw