Logline Madness 2015 – Submission Sunday!

Like shooting womprats on Tattooine, baby!

done! this sounds fun

If anyone entered the logline contest or is just curious about it, the first round results for the comedy bracket are out now.

http://www.scriptsandscribes.com/2015/03/logline-madness-round-1-comedy/

Wed, Thurs and Fri we'll release the other first round bracket results, with round 2 over the weekend.

Brackets:
Comedy
Horror/Thriller/Mystery
Drama
Action/Adventure/Fantasy/Sci-Fi/War

Thanks!

Thrillers in turn.

http://www.scriptsandscribes.com/2015/03/logline-madness-round-1-thriller/

Mine is there first in the row. The judge assumes that my protagonist is rich and successful. He's not. You think I need to adjust my logline?

It's all subjective. One reader, albeit a fairly experienced one, seemed to believe your protagonist is rich and therefore not relatable. I didn't feel that way myself personally. What I was a little confused about was when you described him as an "exceptionally smart" rock musician. Unless the fact that he's a genius affects the story, you may want to leave it out as, in my opinion, it muddies the water. If it does have a direct impact on the story, you may want to reveal how and why. Otherwise you can use other descriptions like "down on his luck" rock musician or "talented but self destructive" or whatever. Something that might give us more insight into him other than he's really smart. Good luck with it regardless!

Thanks. Yes, I certainly can tell that you all know what you're dong, as your logic makes so much sense in your feedback. Lack of clarity is always the writer's fault.

Taking your advice:

LOGLINE
An exceptionally clever ex-criminal's life takes a disastrous turn when his old crime-buddies try to force him to dig up a loot that they all saw slip through their fingers during the coup.

Filman said:

Thanks. Yes, I certainly can tell that you all know what you're dong, as your logic makes so much sense in your feedback. Lack of clarity is always the writer's fault.

Taking your advice:

LOGLINE
An exceptionally clever ex-criminal's life takes a disastrous turn when his old crime-buddies try to force him to dig up a loot that they all saw slip through their fingers during the coup.

Click to expand...

I do think this one is better, but a few suggestions in your choice of words. Using "ex-criminal" and "old crime-buddies" is using "crime" twice in the logline. Perhaps you can change one to "ex-felon","ex-convict", "old partners", "former accomplices", etc.

Or perhaps something like, "A down-on-his-luck rock musician's life takes a tragic turn when his former criminal partners track him down and to save the woman he loves, they force him to recover the loot that vanished during their final job."

I have no idea the elements that make up your story other than what I've read in the couple loglines you posted, but if you can lay out the stakes "to save the life..." or something, it definitely helps increase interest and "recover" the loot sounds more complex and interesting than "dig up" which sounds like it's just buried somewhere and he can just, dig it up. With "recover" it could be anything, like breaking into a police station evidence room, a drug lords safe or whatever the reader can imagine to get it.

"Down-on-his-luck" and "rock musician" describes your protagonist and gives a clear visual image of him. "Exceptionally clever" or "smart" give us intrinsic characteristics of him, but we don't get as good a feel for him or his situation.

Also "tragic" turn gives a more ominous tone, like people being killed, than "disastrous" which gives the implication of a train wreck of life destroying complications. If it's a thriller, I think "tragic" works better. If it's action, maybe "disastrous" or even better "catastrophic" might fit more.

I also think "vanished" is more mysterious than "slip through their fingers". I switched "coup" to "final job" because coup has the implication of an uprising or revolt, more than a criminal action and "final job" gives the reader the understanding that the protagonist had gotten out of the life of crime and adds the sense of... finality.

It's totally up to you of course. These are just my suggestions, knowing what little I know about your story.

Good luck!

Haha. Fun to see how you imagine the storyline. Your wild guess would be a solid, typical Hollywood-story. What I did was, I thought "the movies are always about some gangster doing this one more final job and then he retires, so what I would want to see is he who already did that last gig".

But to see how you think, as you create a logline is very intriguing. Thanks.

The final four loglines are up, judged by lit managers Ava Jamshidi and Adam Kolbrenner.

http://www.scriptsandscribes.com/2015/04/logline-madness-finalfour/