DPG –

Regarding persistence – as a writer yourself, you understand — one person’s opinion should never sway you.

TBH – I’ve already done an outline using a past logline. All the loglines afterwards seem to be poking at it from different angles and trying to pinpoint the conflict. The conflict is my clothesline. The driveshaft of a story. (I still believe “must graduate” and “strict school” is enough conflict and I shouldn’t have to keep tarting it up. It kind of makes me think – if you asked five people to do the logline for the KARATE KID you’d end up with five different loglines. Each pressing in on something different.)

Anyways – I haven’t changed the story or the plot. The only thing that’s really changing is the logline and the wording of it. At this point – I’m very, very tempted to start that first draft and then do a marketing logline later. (A risky move as I believe that you must get the design exactly correct so later on you’re not relying on magical fairies to help you when you can’t sell the damn thing. Same time – we both know the logline is different after you’ve finished a first draft. You always end up with something a bit different – which makes me wonder whether I’ll discover something. Which to some extent – is relying on those magical fairies.)

Also, just want to clear something up, you said in an earlier comment – that a logline must be about objective goals, not subjective needs.

We both know that’s not a hard and fast rule. You can use a subjective need as the main goal as long as the logline has a hook/or concept is unique. (This is something you taught me earlier this year.) “Wants the girl/boy” or “wants to prove himself” or whatever – is still acceptable for a logline. Not always. But it can happen.

Thank you for your notes.