Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Logline Critique, Round 1 #22 (removed)

TITLE: Bonded
GENRE: Paranormal Romance

(removed)

10 comments:

  1. This needs more focus and more info. You have interesting info already, but the wrong kind. Show me why this is paranormal romance. The logline is no place to be coy :) Try something like: When virginal Leyton Bradford falls for (something/someone paranormal, if he's indeed paranormal), she must (action) or else/in order to (keep big bad from happening). What you currently have is nothing you could use to answer "What's your story about?" Avoid first person. Give us the goods - we want to know. Good luck!

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  2. For a logline it's too long and starts to read like a synopsis from a query or something. The logline should really just introduce "who" "what" and "why"...Who is the MC? What is the conflict? and Why is it important? I think you should really start over and go somewhere along the lines of:

    When (MC) meets Leyton Braford, he makes her feel like virginity is less of a sin than she thought, but when (something happens), (something results).

    That's basically all you need for a logline, what you have right now doesn't touch on any sort of tension or conflict and that's essential.

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  3. The last two comments offer really great adive, and I think it would really help.
    It sounds like you have an interesting story but to really grab attention I think the above suggestions would give it greater impact.
    Good luck

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  4. I'd trim down the wording on this. Is Leyton Bradford the MC or is that the character that was the reason she carries the virgin label? And where's the conflict? I don't see any paranormal elements in this either.

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  5. This seems more summary or intro paragraph than logline; we need to know what the protagonist's challenge is.

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  6. Sadly, I think you need to start over. A Log line is NOT the first 150 words of your novel. It's a brief "synopsis" that can be used once you're querying to a literary agent.

    In definition, a log line is: (From Blake Snyder's Save the Cat:)

    "A logline is the one- or two-sentence description of your [novel] that tells us what it is. It must contain a type of hero (that means a type of person plus an adjective that describes him), the antagonist (ditto), and the hero's primal goal. It must have irony, and it must bloom in our brains with potential."


    And YOU need to tell us what the books is about, not your character, even if the story is told in the first person.

    I think it would be beneficial to see the conflict within your character. Does she want to rid herself of the shame for being a virgin or does she she desire to be a "Lily Amongst Thorns" per say and stand up/out for her own purity.

    This is a topic that most teenagers can relate to. The emotions are there when you used "sin" and the comparison to The Scarlet Letter, but elaboration of the heroin's conflict and why she feels this way, and why it's necessary to your plot, is necessary.

    As for the paranormal romance genre, you did not give us any idea what the paranormal aspects were and left us hanging in the balance.

    I hope this was helpful. I'd really like to see this idea come to fruition, but without knowing what the book is actually about, I can't tell you that I'm interested or not. :(

    I wish you the very best! Cheers! :)

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  7. I must learn to read the other comments first. It looks like I repeated a lot of things the others said, but I hoped that I told you how to fix the situation.

    You seemed confused by what this challenge was and I wanted to help clarify. :/

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  8. I think this may be the first 250 words of the novel, rather than the logline so I'm not going to comment.

    Holly

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  9. Holly, you're right, and I've deleted it. The author had emailed me letting me know her error and I gave her a chance to send me the logline so I could replace the text. I didn't hear from her. So now it's gone. :)

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  10. Aww! That's too bad! I hope she gets back to you or tries at another time. :)

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