Yes, to some extent. I stumbled over "fair and evil friends from another world." Can you get the same thing across without it? I know you're trying to show the other people from those other story lines, but I'm getting lost when they come in at the end.

Because his brother killed a sacred rat, a quiet hunter is forced to take refuge with an endangered band of rebels to fight against the wrath of the demon worshipers.

Would it be better just to skip it?

It flows more neatly this way… Does anybody else have thoughts on this one? I'm not sure if those other threads might need to be hinted at somehow or if it works fine this way.

Title: Never
Genre: Western/mystery
Logline: When a young scholar is accused of murder and sent to work off his sentence in the deadliest mines in the west, his rancher brother must fight to prove his innocence, before the young man gives in to the evil influence of his overseer or is worked to death.

Isn't that a bit long?

Personally, I'm of the opinion that length isn't usually an issue. Some people will tell you to stick with 20 words or less, but in this case, I don't know that you can. Just remove that last comma and I like this one.

Here I am with my second voluntarily-written logline...

Title: Repetition
Genre: Fantasy
Logline: "When an anxious girl escapes from a poorly-run orphanage, she finds that she is different from other people and must choose her place in the world quickly before others do the choosing for her."

I like it when people write loglines voluntarily!

I'm liking the beginning, but the ending feels vague after "must choose her place…" Can you tell us more concretely what the situation here is?

And I'm unsure whether this girl being different is meant in a super-human direction (so to speak) or just supposed to mean that she's her own person and is "special."

I just realized how ambiguous that was. Sorry about that if any one was confused. What I mean is, should I just skip the mention of the "fair and evil friends"?

Would this be a finished logline? Or does it still need some changes?

Because his brother killed a sacred rat, a quiet hunter is forced to take refuge with an endangered band of rebels to fight against the wrath of the demon worshipers.

It makes sense to me that way. I don't know that I'm compelled to rush out and read it, but the concept sounds intriguing and I "get" it.

(Being compelled to run out and read something is generally a composite equation involving how big a fan one already is of the author and the compelling factor of the story hook. )

Ahh. Logline critiques...just what I need.

I haven't actually written a logline, but I have some candidates from my back cover blurb. Here goes nothing.

TITLE: The Star Medallion
GENRE: epic fantasy
LOGLINE: Garaden leads an ordinary life in the remote town of Teravall, where everything is safe and predictable...or so he thinks. One day when he discovers a hidden medallion, his world changes.

BTW, I posted the full outline of my first book over in The Fireside novel forum.

Yeah, it's definitely more fun that way.

Okay...
I realized I hadn't formulated the plot very well with my first draft. Sorry about that...
How is this?

After a frightened girl escapes from a poorly-run orphanage, she discovers that she is in possession of strange abilities, that war is brewing all around her, and that she may hold the key to victory; she must quickly choose her side before those that would take advantage of her abnormal powers do so for her.

*coughs*
The "those that would take..." should have a "who." Sentient beings should never be described with "that," and anyway, there are already a lot of "that"s.

*gives Short a coughdrop*

Okay...

After a frightened girl escapes from a poorly-run orphanage, she discovers she is in possession of strange abilities, that war is brewing all around her, and that she may hold the key to victory; she must quickly choose her side before those who would take advantage of her abnormal powers do so for her.

I was only clearing my throat, but cough drops are yummy anywho. *noms cough drop*
*claps for logline*

Vat doss zee Hammermaster sink of zees?

Zee Hammermaster sinks zat you eez very seely.



Welcome! Rather than type it all up here, I'm going to give you a link to The Quick-Start Logline Chapter from my logline book. Give it a read (it's pretty short) and see what you do with your logline once you're done.

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16nt ... RobO0/edit



I think you could probably streamline it into something like this:

When a frightened girl escapes from a poorly-run orphanage and discovers she is in possession of strange abilities, she must quickly choose her side in a brewing war before those who would take advantage of her abnormal powers do so for her.

Ooh, that's perfect! Thanks so much for your help!

Just read the logline chapter. Good stuff. I'll definitely work on that.

Okay, here's my first go. *clears throat*

Logline: When an unassuming teenage boy from a remote village finds a hidden medallion, his life is forever changed. Ruthlessly pulled from his safe and predictable life, he must travel across the world on a perilous quest, for he is the only one able to defeat the evil lord threatening to destroy the world.

I'm pretty sure it's supposed to only be one sentence. But it sounds intriguing!

When an unassuming teenager finds a hidden medallion, he must go on a journey across the world as the only one who can defeat an evil lord threatening to destroy the world.

I tried condensing it a little...feel free to scrap the attempt.

You had me until the evil lord threatened to destroy the world. It still works as a general fantasy piece, and if that's the direction you're going, keep it! But if there's something deeper here, draw it out and intrigue us.

Also there is a typo in the edited version: "as the only man one..." so whichever word "man" or "one" would work better is fine...just don't need both.

I just didn't want to run two sentences together that would be better separated.



That's fine. The best way to learn and improve is to listen to the critiques. Hence the main reason for my participation in HW.



I only wanted to add that last part to emphasize the urgency of the quest. If there's a better way to get that point across, I'm all ears.

Something deeper such as internal emotion, hidden motivations, etc.?



Righto. I meant it to be one.

Well, as I said, it's fine if that's all there is. But if the evil lord has some more concrete plot that more directly involves the hero, that would punch this one up significantly.

You're good! I think it was added in by mistake by someone else.

Positive!



Unfortunately, I didn't let my imagination run wild enough with this series. The main plot is the evil lord trying to stop the hero before he completes the quest (which is more expansive than it sounds). Although he (evil lord) did send the Daiths...

Well, then what you've got is honest for the story and does its job nicely. Don't feel like you have to promise something that's not there.

Thanks for your input. I'll have to start writing more loglines. They are fun.

That's the spirit!

Indeed.

This is a logline written for my NaNo this year (And it's my first logline ever...so go easy on me, 'K? XD):

"Lieshellyk City comes undone when a thief girl and the grandson of its founder form both a friendship and an alliance to discover the truth behind the city's construction, and that of the Stormings which keep them bound inside its dark corridors."


Seriously, I want to know what you lords and ladies think. (And thanks to Lycanis for bringing it up. )

Welcome to logline world! Mwhahahah, you've been bitten with the bug and you will never return to sanity!

…Or something like that.

I can see a lot of great potential in there. Let me give you one rule right off the bat… Names of places, people, and organizations don't belong in loglines. So where you have "Lieshellyk City", you should come up with an adjective-noun pair for it. Or perhaps in this case, you might be able to just say it's a city. Similar concept on the "Stormings".

Let's start with changing those, then we'll see what it looks like and go from there.

Okay, I see where you're going with that, but it feels a whole lot more...generalized when you take the names out of something. Especially, in this case, since the city and its founder--for whom it is named--are a very central part of the story.

So....something like this:

"Everything in their city comes undone when a thief girl and the grandson of the city's founder form both a friendship and an alliance to discover the truth behind the city's construction, and that of the massive storms which keep them bound inside its dark corridors."

Any better?

Here's my tenative logline for my NaNo work... Let me know what you guys think.

TITLE: The Capstone
GENRE: Fantasy
LOGLINE: When a young son of a trader is given one of the most powerful magical artifacts ever created, he is caught between keeping his friends and family safe by giving up the artifact, or protecting it from a power-hungry elf who seeks the artifact for herself.

Yep! I know it feels generalized, but the reason you take the names out is that in this one sentence, you have no context for it. If I begin to tell you about a character or world I've created without any background, you get lost. Same idea here.

I might think about swapping things around so it's more like this… No idea if this is accurate to the story, but I would read the story loglined below.

When a thief girl and the grandson of the city's founder form an alliance to find out the truth behind the city's construction, everything comes undone as they discover the secret of the massive storms which keep them bound inside the city's dark corridors.

You've got some good structure here, but this leaves me with a question that may or may not be what you're after.

Is there somebody the artifact can be given to who will protect it from the elf?

And if that's the direction you're going, perfect! Don't touch it.

Thanks for your feedback! In the story, there really isn't an option for him to give it to anyone else so maybe to revise it... Should I try to somehow fit that into the logline, then?

That might be a good idea, yeah. When I read what you have now, I'm totally expecting the solution to be that a powerful good wizard or something is given the artifact and can protect it from the elf.

I know what you're getting at by rearranging, and according to the story it works, but the 'when' at beginning followed by the 'as' in the middle feels awkward. I'll see if I can rearrange it another way. Thanks!

Ok. How is this, then?

TITLE: The Capstone
GENRE: Fantasy
LOGLINE: When a young son of a trader is given one of the most powerful magical artifacts ever created, he is caught between keeping his friends and family safe by giving up the artifact, or protecting it from a power-hungry elf who seeks the artifact for herself, with no way to pass his duty on to someone else.

Thanks for your help!

Now I'm a little unclear about how he could even give up the artifact if he can't pass the duty on. But this is better, yes.

Maybe this would be better then...


TITLE: The Capstone
GENRE: Fantasy
LOGLINE: When a young son of a trader is given one of the most powerful magical artifacts ever created, he is caught between protecting it from a power-hungry elf who seeks the artifact for herself, and keeping his friends and family safe by giving up the artifact and letting the elf take control, with no way to pass his duty on to someone else.

Maybe it should be "someone other than the elf"? The way you have it sounds contradictory, when you say he could give it to the elf, then you say there's no way to pass it on to someone else. Just a thought.

Well, I'm writing this while half-asleep and in line to get ready for bed, so no guarantees on the cohesiveness here…

I wonder if now that you've changed a few things, you even need the part about passing the duty. Maybe if you cut it way down to this:

When a young son of a trader is given one of the most powerful magical artifacts ever created, he is caught between protecting it from a power-hungry elf or keeping his friends and family safe by giving up the artifact and letting the elf take control.

I believe that you don't need to say the elf wants it for herself if you have that ending about letting her take control, and then with the giving it up option clearly spelled out that giving it up means letting the elf have it, you can lose the last bit.

Anyone care to verify that? *yawn*

Sounds good to me. I'd argue the repeated word "elf" but there's not much to be done about that.

That sounds great! Thanks for your help! And yeah, I know that saying elf twice sounds weird, but there was no way around it...

I know. That's one of my pet peeves as a writer, repeated words.
I should stop commenting on other people's loglines and write my own...

Indeed you should, Shorty. (It's a pet peeve of my own, though...)

Who ever thought it would be so difficult to write a single sentence?

I haz a question! What about loglines for separate books in a series or trilogy? The fantasy logline you helped me out with on HWSF is for the whole trilogy, and I was wondering if I should attempt a logline for the first book.