1. Posted: February 24, 2020In:

    While shooting their first music video, a local metal band on the rise quickly realizes that the urban legend surrounding their filming location is true: When people enter, they don?t exit.

    mrliteral Samurai

    Too long with too much information, yet also not enough detail. Wo don't need to know it's their first video and they're on the rise, but we do need to know what the location is and why it turned out to be a bad idea. Rephrase it without the punctuation and just tell us what it's about: a band shootRead more

    Too long with too much information, yet also not enough detail. Wo don’t need to know it’s their first video and they’re on the rise, but we do need to know what the location is and why it turned out to be a bad idea.

    Rephrase it without the punctuation and just tell us what it’s about: a band shooting a video somewhere dangerous. As is we don’t really have an idea what the overall story is about; you’ve basically summed up a single moment of realization…a single moment is not an entire film. Sum up the first half of the story to the midpoint.

    “A heavy metal band shooting a video at an abandoned castle must survive until morning when the location turns out to be haunted.”

    Just hit us with the pertinent details — protagonist, antagonist, conflict, stakes — so we’ll be interested enough to read more. You can provide additional detail about the characters and location in a synopsis.

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  2. Posted: February 25, 2020In:

    When dark and disturbing children’s drawings come alive. Its creator, a little girl distressed and insecure, must face and erase these drawings from her life before they control her forever.

    mrliteral Samurai

    Why are there two sentences, and one of them a sentence fragment? What is the "it" that's been created, and shouldn't it be "It's"? Has she created the manner in which the drawings come alive, or just created drawings that do somehow come alive? Why do they come alive and how? Why is the little girlRead more

    Why are there two sentences, and one of them a sentence fragment? What is the “it” that’s been created, and shouldn’t it be “It’s”? Has she created the manner in which the drawings come alive, or just created drawings that do somehow come alive? Why do they come alive and how? Why is the little girl distressed and insecure, and why are the adjectives describing her placed after the noun instead of before? Does she need to face them after they come alive or erase them before they do? Or erase them after, which would involve avoiding the live manifestation to get to the original drawings? Does she have to remove them from her life or literally erase them from the surface on which they’re drawn? How exactly do they control her?

    Not a single aspect of the story has been made clear. Give us the protagonist, antagonist, conflict, stakes. Do it in one sentence without commas and make everything clearly communicated.

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  3. Posted: September 5, 2018In:

    When their son takes his own life, his determined mother must seek out her orphaned nephew in an effort to support his dreams like she never could for her own child.

    mrliteral Samurai

    Never start a logline with "When." No one cares about things that happen; we care about the people to whom things happen. Start with the protagonist. Other major issues have already been mentioned here: use of "their," why is her quest a must...also, if her nephew is orphaned, why does she not alreaRead more

    Never start a logline with “When.” No one cares about things that happen; we care about the people to whom things happen. Start with the protagonist.

    Other major issues have already been mentioned here: use of “their,” why is her quest a must…also, if her nephew is orphaned, why does she not already have custody? Is the death of her son and those of the nephew’s parents related, or concurrent? If not, where’s the other kid been all this time? And what do his dreams have to do with anything? What’s really at stake here?

    A logline should be a compelling summary of the script, highlighting these basic details: protagonist, antagonist, conflict, stakes. Give us this info, and phrase it so it flows in one smooth sentence.

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