Have an account? Sign In Now
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
While reading an old book of century old Indian rituals, a non-believer and arrogant millennial guy performs a ritual in which a person can leave the physical dimension of human existence, and loses his body. As he doesn’t get to read the next pages of getting back to his body, he gets stuck in other dimension. His family considers him dead. He has only 14 hours to get back to get back his body before it gets cremated.
"a non-believer and arrogant millennial guy " = protagonist "performs a ritual and loses his body" = inciting incident he must ... "get his body back before it gets cremated" = main character goal If this were my logline, I'd ask why an arrogant, non-believer was reading centuries old Indian ritualsRead more
“a non-believer and arrogant millennial guy ” = protagonist
“performs a ritual and loses his body” = inciting incident
he must … “get his body back before it gets cremated” = main character goal
If this were my logline, I’d ask why an arrogant, non-believer was reading centuries old Indian rituals in the first place? While fiction is, well … not reality, it does model itself on the stuff of life, making plausibility an important criteria to consider. Most storytelling does well when it introduces a likable, albeit fundamentally flawed character. Arrogance is our hero’s flaw, but what might be their positive traits, their skill or something special?
If arrogance is his flaw, then the character arc might be to transform into a selfless person. In what way might the story conflict facilitate this transformation? While, yes, he wants his body back (still all about his needs, and affirming his arrogance), what magic puzzle, troll at the gate, secret password must he solve to win it back? Think maybe Dorothy, who in order to get back home (to get back something she lost), she must kill the Wicked Witch, and get her broom back to the Wizard …
See lessA grieving mothers accidental killing of a crime boss collides with her estranged fathers underworld debts, reunited they must escape a police hunt across country in an effort to prove their innocence.
"grieving mother" = protagonist "accidental killing of a crime boss" = inciting incident "must escape a police hunt across country in an effort to prove their innocence" = main character goal If this were my logline, I'd ask myself, Why set the scene with a grieving mother? A way to establish strongRead more
“grieving mother” = protagonist
“accidental killing of a crime boss” = inciting incident
“must escape a police hunt across country in an effort to prove their innocence” = main character goal
If this were my logline, I’d ask myself, Why set the scene with a grieving mother? A way to establish strong audience pity, perhaps, but what is she grieving over? As reader, the only clue is maybe she is grieving over her estranged father’s underworld debts, but then, maybe not!
The main villain in this story is the ‘Police’. A villain can be just as important as the hero in a story, so who is this police person? Male/female, old/young? Consider a little character depth to the bad guy, and see what happens!
Take for example the film The Fugitive (1993). Here we have an innocent character, who accidently enters a murder scene of his wife, only to become the lead suspect of a thrilling police chase. Clearly the police are the ‘bad guys’, because they are mistaken about our poor Fugitive and the crime. But Tommy Lee Jones plays such a good ‘bad guy’, that we sit seat edged, wanting to know who will win.
Crime boss, accidental killing, estranged fathers, and underworld debts, may all be too many ingredients. That might simply be replaced by just one good, ‘bad guy’.
See lessA headstrong and impulsive youth steals £230 million of mob funds and stays one step ahead of the top mob enforcer until he decides to donate it to a charitable cause.
"headstrong and impulsive youth" = protagonist "steals £230 million of mob funds" = inciting incident "donates it to a charitable cause" = inciting incident "stays one step ahead of the top mob enforcer" = main character goal Great logline. Has a heist film meets thriller feel to it. 'Impulsive charRead more
“headstrong and impulsive youth” = protagonist
“steals £230 million of mob funds” = inciting incident
“donates it to a charitable cause” = inciting incident
“stays one step ahead of the top mob enforcer” = main character goal
Great logline. Has a heist film meets thriller feel to it.
‘Impulsive character steals large sum of money from bad guys’ seems to indicate that the character arc might be from Impulsive -> through to -> Considered, as a main character trait transformation. In a strange way, donating a large sum of stolen money to a charitable cause, also seems (to me anyhow) a bit impulsive too. A Charity is best to accept ‘clean money’, and while donating has thoughtful and considered qualities, our said character hasn’t really thought things through.
How then might our unpredictable character find himself in a stop and think situation? And I guess the answer is when the bad guys catch him. Makes me think of ‘A Clockwork Orange (1971)’, where an overly confident character eventually finds himself in a torturous, and institutional situation. Wonder if this logline might benefit from more detail on the nature of the main character’s problem and its potential for transformation.
See less