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In 2161 time travel is common place, but highly regulated, when he?s shot, a cutthroat businessman?s consciousness is sent back in time by his life insurance company to prevent his upcoming murder, without disrupting the timeline too much or his provider cancels his contract.
This logline is in desperate need of a comma after "killed".I don't think "thanks to his company's retcon issuance" does anything other than confuse me. It's a SciFi so I have no problem accepting time travel or the whole bringing back to life.I think you can lose the "high level" bit from the charaRead more
This logline is in desperate need of a comma after “killed”.
I don’t think “thanks to his company’s retcon issuance” does anything other than confuse me. It’s a SciFi so I have no problem accepting time travel or the whole bringing back to life.
I think you can lose the “high level” bit from the character’s description. I don’t need to know that to understand him and this story.
I’m not going to lie, this is a tough one. Anything SciFi and fantasy are always harder because there is a certain amount of world-building that needs to be done to make sure the reader understands what’s happening. Why is this deal so important? Why is it worth risking his life over? Surely, knowing that he will be killed for this deal, any sane person would just walk away? At that point he can just go on living his life? He can’t be allowed to walk away – that needs to come across!
I really like the idea that a company is sending him back in time, and I’m hoping that if he’s not preserving the deal then they can just pull the plug on him otherwise why would he bother. So he’s got to find a way of covertly investigating his own murder while overtly being seen to save this deal. Think this is great!
When his corporation bring him back to life seven days before his murder, a cut-throat businessman is given no choice but to save the multi-billion dollar deal that may have gotten him killed.
This is probably the best I can come up with. I think it suggests the corporation as the antagonist which, in-turn, shows that he can’t just walk away. A multi-billion dollar deal is enough to think that a company would risk its employee’s lives over. ?It could definitely do with some tweaking depending on what the story is you’re trying to tell.
Hope this helps.
See lessA body filled with different personalities, whom are struggling to deal with their own problems whilst trying to protect the woman in their group from the judging nature of todays society.
I recommend reading the "Our formula" page to help with formatting. Specifically, this logline currently has no inciting incident, no clear protagonist, no obvious objective goal and no stakes. It's also a little confusing to read. Is the body all the personalities reside in the woman? Or is the womRead more
I recommend reading the “Our formula” page to help with formatting. Specifically, this logline currently has no inciting incident, no clear protagonist, no obvious objective goal and no stakes. It’s also a little confusing to read. Is the body all the personalities reside in the woman? Or is the woman another personality inside the body? Why does the woman need protecting? Isn’t this a little old-fashioned or is there another reason why she’s at risk?
Protagonist
Who is the character that this whole story revolves around? Is it one of the different personalities or the woman? Ideally, it should be one character as it’s a lot easier for an audience to emotional react to a story when there is just one primary character that the viewer sees the world through.
Inciting incident
What happens to this character that turns her life upside down and kick starts this story? This is really important as it also gives us her objective goal – correcting the balance thrown off by this incident.
Goal
What is the protagonist trying to achieve? Ok, protect the woman – but that’s simply a method of achieving the goal. The objective is to finish the race, not just say you’re running in it. This goal, as mentioned above, should clearly relate to the inciting incident – they are two sides of the scales. It needs to be a visual goal because film is a visual medium.
Stakes
What happens if the goal isn’t achieved? What is at risk? Without this the audience simply won’t care. I want to know why it’s so important that this woman is kept safe.
Antagonist
So the antagonistic forces are the judging nature in today’s society… that’s something that everyone has to deal with these days. This website being a perfect example of this. People, to a certain extent, want to be judged as a means of acceptance or validation. Why should she be exempt from this? Why, specifically, is this antagonistic force so important to this woman. A good exercise is to write a logline from the antagonist’s perspective – even if it’s not a person, imagine it is with an agenda. It can really help solidify the protagonist, stakes and goal.
At the moment, this is more of a setup and we need a lot more specifics to understand what this story is actually about.
Hope this helps.
See lessAn ambitious app developer must work at his late father?s winery before he can inherit it and cash out for the money he needs to stop a megalomaniac venture capitalist from stealing his latest app.
Agree with Dkpough1 on all his points. Currently the inciting incident and the goal do not match up. Thing of it in these terms: The inciting incident is the event that upsets the balance in the protagonist's life and the goal is to correct that balance. So the goal has to be directly related to theRead more
Agree with Dkpough1 on all his points.
Currently the inciting incident and the goal do not match up. Thing of it in these terms: The inciting incident is the event that upsets the balance in the protagonist’s life and the goal is to correct that balance. So the goal has to be directly related to the inciting incident. Shark kills person / kill shark, lost son / find son, wife’s office building taken over by terrorists / save wife by stopping terrorists. Cause and effect.
My bigger question is why is the audience going to care? What does this app do? There are countless app developers with countless apps – why do we want this guy to succeed? I feel like it’s a very selfish goal and potentially selling his dead father’s winery to fund it could make him difficult for the audience to get behind. He wants to cash in on his father’s legacy simply to produce his app…
If he’s developed this app already is it not protected by some form of intellectual property laws? I don’t understand why he needs the cash? The app’s built already right? As an app developer surely all he has to do is release it and watch the money (hopefully) roll in?
You’ve put this in the comedy genre. I think there needs to be some clue from the logline as to where the comedy is coming from. My personal feeling is that you shouldn’t be able to change the genre without having to change the logline. With yours, I could switch it to a drama and not have to change a thing. Give us some clue as to what sort of comedy we’re looking at.
Hope this helps.
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