And then what happens? Serious question. That's a really intriguing hook, but what's the basis of the plot? Does he spend the rest of the book trying to figure out who is king?

Wouldn't answering that question give it away? *tinkers anyway*

Working Title: The King's Bluff
Genre: Fantasy
Logline: A young king follows his dead father's instructions to play the fool in order to avoid being assassinated by his evil regent, only to discover that the throne belongs, not to him, but to a familiar rebel.

Since I don't know the whole story, I don't know how "spoilery" that is. However, it doesn't matter how spoilery a logline is as long as it sells. I really like what you have there in this last one. It has several great hooks and twists. When are you going to write this thing? ^-^

*chuckles* I'm glad you like it.

I'm starting in September.

I'm still on vacation, so don't take this as me being back... But Raven, I do want to make sure you know that posting loglines here is not making you an awful bother! I started this thread to help people write loglines, and you're putting it to very good use. Keep it up as long as you have material to logline!

*pops out of thread and back to vacation mode*

September? You posted that tantilizing logline only to tell me that you won't be writing until September?

*chuckles and hugs Aubrey* I have to outline and worldbuild first.

Clever. I wouldn't be able to worldbuild and outline by then though, so I gave myself a year and a half for mine.

*would mumble and grumble about not being able to read a lot of Varon-writing either, but decides to stop derailing the thread*

Thanks for the critique! Here, how's this?

In an alternate world where beauty is perfect, anything is possible, and no one dies, a shy teenage girl is both thrilled with her new exciting life, and scared of the person she becomes when she enters it.

I do like that. It tells me much more about the character. We'll see what Jordan says when he gets back.

I've got my subconscious working on the logline for the story.

That's a well-behaved subconscious. *feeds it cupcakes*

It appreciates it, but it wants me to feed it more data on the plot, which I'm lacking.

Title: I don't have one yet.
Genre: Fantasyish
Logline: After hitting his head on a hospital floor, a cowardly teenage boy wakes up in the dying world of dreams and learns the girl he loves is trapped in the world, and fights his cowardice to rescue her.

Not that good.
At least it tells that it's character driven .

I'm back! And I see a couple loglines here to work with. Would you people kindly poke me if I missed any? Thanks.



I'm unclear on where the teenage girl came from. Is she from the alternate world originally?



Is the first clause necessary? Why is it important that he hit his head on the hospital floor?

You could probably amp up the tension with a "must" word like "must fight his cowardice". Or even better, by bringing in an antagonist and making it "must fight *you fill in the villain*".

Hitting his head is what sends him into his own coma where he finds himself in the dreamworld.

There is the Overseer, but he's not the antagonist. Hmm.

Okay, but do we need to know what caused the coma to understand the hook in a single sentence?

It's kinda like Narnia… Other world, animals talk, villain threatening peace, Aslan… But how we got there? Secondary.

Antagonists don't have to be people. It's just tougher to write about if they're not.

This one I mentioned earlier. *points* As it is it seems... empty. All fluff. But I'm not sure if I could do better with the plot's current standing.

Well, there you go. If the plot doesn't logline, chances are you need to work on the plot a little more. That's a valid outcome of a loglining session!

Try 2:
A cowardly teenage boy wakes up in the dying world of dreams and learns the girl he loves is trapped in the castle of the Overseer, but he must fight his cowardice to rescue her.

I'm liking the direction. Is there another way to say that he fights his cowardice? If that was something tangible, it'd sit better, but even if not, you have cowardice and cowardly in the same sentence, which is a little awkward.

There's mine, unless the change I made with Aubrey's help was all it needed....

Fight his fear, perhaps?

"In order to" could be chopped to just "to". Otherwise, I like this one. Though you might want to specify a bit more what you mean by a "familiar rebel". I think I understand it, but I'm not quite sure what it is.



Yep, better. Though it's quite a bit like saying that he has to defeat the darkness within himself. Is there a tangible action that you could tie in? Something like "He must conquer his fears before he can storm the Overlord's palace" or something like that…

He is familiar in that the MC has personally known him for a long time, and he's also familiar in that the MC knew the rebel was a rebel before he found out that the rebel was the true king. Are either of those what you thought of?

Yep, those are both what I thought. It's probably good that way.

Okay! I'll just fix that little wording problem then. Thank you so much!

How's this:

When a shy teenage girl discovers an alternate world where beauty is perfect, anything is possible, and no one dies, she is both is both thrilled with her new exciting life and scared of the person she becomes when she enters it.

*nods* I shall work on the plot, and return when I have a complete-ish form to work with.

There we go!

Cool, thanks!

Okay, here I am, the non-self-proclaimed logline guru ( ), asking for y'all to help me with a logline for a screenplay I co-authored!

I have three versions for you to pick at.

TITLE: Nearly a Knight
GENRE: Fantasy Comedy
LOGLINES:

Version 1: When a misfit carnival magician accidentally makes the princess disappear, he sets off with his nephew, a ditzy nanny, and the pompous king to right the wrong, uncovering a dark plot against the kingdom in the process.

Version 2: After he accidentally makes the princess disappear and turns her father into a frog, a discontented carnival magician uncovers a dark plot against the kingdom and sets out with wish young nephew, a ditzy nanny, and the king to right the wrong.

Version 3: When a discontented carnival magician accidentally performs illegal magic, he sets out with his young nephew, a ditzy nanny, and a pompous king to undo the spell before a dark plot can be carried out.

Those all need something... But I'm not sure what it is. Any ideas?

I think the first one is the best. It's concise.

I like the first one best too. Perhaps the 'dark plot' part is too vague, and perhaps that's what it's missing?

My first question is... Do you really need to mention the nephew, nanny, AND the king all in the logline? Are they all really that essential? Are any of them that essential? Having read the script I know why the nephew could be essential (because the magician learns to love him), but you don't hint at any of that in the logline. The rest are extras, IMO.

I left in the questing party because I think it adds to the hilarious feeling. I'm trying to convey that, as the genre suggests, this is a funny movie, so the situation itself is crazy.

It's interesting that the first version is striking everybody so far as the best one. It's the first version I did, and the other two are attempts to revise it.

For those who haven't read the screenplay, here's a brief rundown:

The carnival magician and his nephew take shelter in the king's castle and are called upon to entertain. Unbeknownst to them, a group of malcontents has hired a sorcerer to overthrow the king. They monkey with the magician's props to make it look like he transformed the king and made the princess disappear.

The princess' nanny believes the magician was the one responsible, so she enlists the magician's help to find where the princess disappeared to. So most of the movie is spent tracking her down and avoiding the sorcerer on the way.

Does that help at all?

That sounds like it would be a fun movie.

If the audience knows the malcontents and the evil sorcerer are involved early on, then perhaps they should be in the logline.

Yes, the bad guys are introduced very early on (first scene in the last draft; might be different in the next one). Eventually everything comes to a head and they have to be confronted, but that's not necessarily the point of the story.

So... I'm not sure!

Version 4: After he accidentally makes the princess disappear, a discontented carnival magician must find her and stop a group of malcontents before they unleash a scheme to take over the kingdom.

Still clunky, but a different take on it. Feels too dramatic for the comedy angle...

What would you say is the point of the story?

The point is that the carnival magician was once training to be a knight. However, he had to quit for various reasons, and the laws of the kingdom don't permit him to restart training. So he's going through life feeling sorry for himself and thinking that he can't do anything to change the world without knighthood.

So, long story short, the point is that the carnival magician realizes by the end of the story that chivalry isn't dependent on a title.

I like the theme.

I'll keep thinking about the logline.

Maybe you could phrase the logline something like "must find the malevolents responsible to clear his name." Something with that gist.

That's a good direction, Aubrey, and that's where I would really like to go with this... The problem is that if I do that, I need to set them up earlier, and I haven't been able to come up with a non-clunky way to say that the disappearance was the fault of the malcontents but still attributed to the magician.

What about something like...

"When he is accused of making the princess disappear, a discontented carnival musician sets off to find the malcontents responsible before they use the princess to take over the kingdom."

Only polished and more accurate.

Thank you, Aubrey! In making it more accurate, though, I get stuck here:

When he is accused of making the princess disappear, a discontented carnival magician must find her to clear his name, but he will have to face the malcontents responsible...

And then?

*nods* I see what you mean. Maybe something like...

"...a discontented carnival magician sets out to find her to clear his name, only to discover that an evil sorcerer is holding her hostage."

Success!-ish...

I return with a logline.

Title: The Last Pegasi (actually, that's not the title; right now it's just a placename )
Genre: Fantasy
Logline: When a bitter tanner vows vengence against the race that killed his father, his misguided bloodlust upsets a prophecy that could destory all that his father stood for.

Thoughts?

I like it, though I think it would work better and be clearer with "creature" instead of "race", and perhaps "and could" instead of "that could".

*ponders*

Replacing the first would make the logline slightly inaccurate, but I think that would be a fine compromise.

As to the second.... *thinks* It sounds a little awkward to me. Also, if I do that, would that take away from the importance of the prophecy? Without connecting the prophecy to the destruction, I wonder what the point of the prophecy is.

Would the prophecy destroy all his father stood for, or would messing up the prophecy destroy all his father stood for?