1. Posted: March 13, 2020In:

    When the town bully humiliates him, a mild-mannered cowboy sets out to reclaim his dignity, only to accidentally kill the man, and set off his violent outlaw family.

    Trix Samurai

    Hi darkhorse, I agree with the points the others have made. ?For my thoughts: Town bully definitely brings connotations of school ground or teen players. How does he set out to reclaim his dignity? ?By being a bully to the bully? ?Is this a realistic motivation for a mild-mannered guy even if he didRead more

    Hi darkhorse,

    I agree with the points the others have made. ?For my thoughts:

    • Town bully definitely brings connotations of school ground or teen players.
    • How does he set out to reclaim his dignity? ?By being a bully to the bully? ?Is this a realistic motivation for a mild-mannered guy even if he didn’t intend on killing him?
    • “Set off” – I think I get what you mean by this, but it’s not clear.
    • Who is your new antagonist? ?Needs to be a specific person in the outlaw family.
    • ?I have a sense of the trouble he’s now in, but it’s not clear exactly what the outlaws are planning or what the cowboy intends to do about it – as Dusty says, he could just run. Feels like this is conflict, but no stakes.
    • You mentioned the family coming to town and killing people until the cowboy does something, but that made me think – why aren’t they already in town (they’re his family) and why wouldn’t they just string up the cowboy?
    • I wonder if it would be worth considering this as a mafia story in the Wild West – a sort of Godfather meets High Noon? ?That way you could have the ‘family’ an outlaw gang running a protection racket on the town and the cowboy being driven to react for some reason. ?They would then come to town to flush out the killer of their goon, killing people until he shows himself?

    E.g. ?A mild-mannered cowboy must rally his tyrannised town into defending themselves after a protection racket goon is accidentally killed during his weekly collection. ?

    I like the irony of a mild-mannered cowboy being the one to have to rally defences. ? My example doesn’t give you the stakes though…

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  2. Posted: March 13, 2020In:

    In a future where the wealthy live above the smog in floating cities, a group of scavengers ? led by a buoyant teen ? make the seemingly impossible ascent from the barren earth below in search of essential supplies for their people.

    Trix Samurai

    Hi AHarper84, As OlDustyDogg has pointed out, your logline raises more questions than it answers. ?I like the premise of segregated society, however this has been done so many times, you really need to consider what difference your approach has. ?My thoughts are: Who is the protagonist? ?The buoyantRead more

    Hi AHarper84,

    As OlDustyDogg has pointed out, your logline raises more questions than it answers. ?I like the premise of segregated society, however this has been done so many times, you really need to consider what difference your approach has. ?My thoughts are:

    • Who is the protagonist? ?The buoyant teen? ?This isn’t obvious, and you need to choose someone to carry your story (on that subject, why have you described the teen as ‘buoyant’? ?Considering the elites live in the clouds, this is a confusing choice of word – are they resilient or do they actually ‘float’?)
    • Who is the antagonist?
    • The conflict is implied, but the stakes aren’t. ?Why must they travel above the clouds? ?What are they looking for and what will happen if they don’t get it?
    • Even though the society is segregated, the elite would never simply let the people on the ground die – who would clean their houses?! LOL. ?Seriously, the entire service industry is peopled by ordinary joes… The elite wouldn’t be the elite if they had no one to get their hands dirty for them.
    • I feel like you have an interesting conceit – now you need to find your specific story.

    Regards
    Trix

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  3. Posted: April 4, 2018In:

    After noticing the same stranger at yet another suicide, a novice detective sets out to prove his claims before she incites another tragedy

    Trix Samurai

    A novice detective must identify the stranger he notices at numerous suicide scenes and prove she is linked to the deaths before she strikes again.Although it may be better to already know who the stranger is? ?The IMDB logline for Basic Instinct is: ?"A violent police detective investigates a brutaRead more

    A novice detective must identify the stranger he notices at numerous suicide scenes and prove she is linked to the deaths before she strikes again.

    Although it may be better to already know who the stranger is? ?The IMDB logline for Basic Instinct is: ?”A violent police detective investigates a brutal murder that might involve a manipulative and seductive novelist.”

    A novice detective investigates a series of suicides that might involve a brazen stranger seen at each crime scene.

    I’m much better at critiquing that actually coming up with loglines! LOL

    P.S. ?I’m not sure that NLP is sexy enough to incite suicide! ?It’s pretty outdated and discredited scientifically – maybe have her a psychiatrist/hypnotist/cult leader/counsellor?

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