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sek505Logliner
When a troubled hospice nurse accepts a new job caring for a mysterious couple?s granddaughter on their rural plantation, she must protect her young patient from a violent attacker bent on revenge.
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I think all the elements are there, and I can picture the story in my head.
I do wonder what the attacker wants revenge for, what did the granddaughter to do the attacker?
“troubled” — could be more specific.? In what way is she troubled (depressed, bipolar, PTSD) that impairs her ability to both care for the granddaughter AND fend off the attacker?
“rural plantation” — aren’t plantations by definition rural? So just the word “plantation” should suffice. Also, “plantation” usually connotes a large farm operation set in the South. So I’m guessing that where the story is set.
“When a troubled hospice nurse accepts a new job caring for a mysterious couple?s granddaughter on their plantation” — that phrase actually describes the set up for the plot action: “she must protect her young patient from a violent attacker bent on revenge.”
But the setup? is a distinct plot element from the inciting incident.? They are not equivalent nor interchangeable.? So what is the inciting incident? What happens that provokes the attacker to seek revenge?? Why NOW? Why didn’t the attacker seek revenge before she came?
fwiw
Okay, thanks for the clarification.? I can see why the attacker would take revenge on the “grandparents”, but I am confused as to why the nurse needs to protect the innocent patient.? ?Protect from whom?? It’s not clear in the logline itself whether the child needs protection from her real mother or from the bad grandparents.
And if the child needs protection from the grandparents (not the real mother), then what are the grandparents sinister intentions??
And why isn’t real mother’s attack of the grandparents a benefit to the child? Wouldn’t the real mother attacking the grandparents remove the the “sinister” threat (whatever it is) to the child?? Why does the survival of the child depend on the nurse?
When all the mysteries have been revealed, what is the story about?? What theme is the story exploring?
sek505:
A logline should disclose not hide the game ball, the issue or object that drives the action, that everyone is fighting over.? In this case, the game ball is a matriarchal cult based upon a character in Jewish mythology (mentioned in the Talmud not the Torah, btw.)? That game ball needs to visible, front and center, in the logline.
” I wanted to write a typical home invasion story,…”? ?Regardless of how the film reveals information to a movie audience,? the target audience for a logline? is? movie makers, not movie viewers.? So a? logline should pitch? what is not typical about a story, what? sets it apart from similar stories.? As they say in marketing , a logline should? sell the sizzle, not the steak.? And to mix and mangle metaphors, the sizzle in your story is the cult.? The logline should focus on the sizzle .
fwiw
Actually,? I think? “on her rural plantation”? can be cut.? The particular setting is extraneous to the logline.
What isn’t extraneous and needs more particularity is what constitutes the “evil intentions”.? There are so many? ways people can behave with “evil intentions” — which one applies to this story?? Is she going to be offered up in a ritual sacrifice?? And isn’t the initial attack, the inciting incident,? a kidnapping?? If so,? that is how the incident should be described.