Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Logline Critique, Round 3 #20

TITLE: Opposition
GENRE: YA Fantasy

Atalanta Raire has lived in the safety of Aeris—an invisible continent above China—for almost sixteen years, but danger is lurking in the shadows of the continent. When the Yang Light—part of the syzygy that makes up the balance of the Earth—is stolen, the chaos that follows proposes only one possible explanation: The Earth Plane. Ata has no wish to visit the Plane, but then her sister goes missing, and all evidence points to the Plane, the one place that just might unveil a twisted curse and a shattering history no one, much less Ata, ever expected.

10 comments:

  1. This sounds breathtakingly spectacular!! There is almost TOO much story information to take in and process though. So I would look for small pieces to cut. Your story is not simple, but if you can find a way to make it sound simple, it'll rock even HARDER than it already does!

    GOOD LUCK AND THANK YOU FOR CREATING THIS!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow. There is a lot to take in here. This is YA and it is sounding a bit too complex. I agree with the first comment. Work to simplify. I also found it repetitive and would like to see the words that are used more than once culled 'continent' 'plane'.

    Certainly a unique plot. But I think a bit too much going on to make the logline effective.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with the first two comments. It is too much information. I'd start with explaining Atalanta and Aeris. Then jump to her sister missing on the Earth Plane, and what is at stake if Atalanta goes there to find her sister.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is big, dramatic and unique but also very confusing. I think it would be great if you cut out every name that isn't necessary (e.g. the earth plane is just a badlands he doesn't want to visit because (is there a reason other than personal preference?). I really like this but I had to read twice and don't think I absorbed as much as I could if it was simplified.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Author of the LoglineOctober 12, 2011 at 6:28 PM

    Thanks for your feedback, everyone! I appreciate it! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. This is honestly WAY too much world building for a logline. You need to give us enough to know who she is and then move on to the inciting incident (which is her sister's disappearance I think). After that, we need some kind of plot. Is she going to try to find her sister? Is someone or something going to stop her or make this difficult?

    Good luck!
    Holly

    ReplyDelete
  7. This sounds fantastic! I had no trouble understanding it, however it does feel a little long and I think boiling it down further would strengthen it. There's a lot of (interesting) extraneous information in your first couple sentences, and they could be condensed into one. Words like "syzygy" may confuse, but yin/yang is well known enough that we can infer the meaning of being one half of a balancing pair without the complex explanation.
    Awesome start! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I really love the sound of this story – very interesting, and Aeris sounds fascinating – but I too wondered why she does not want to visit the Earth Plane. I agree with the others. If you cut down some of the information and leave out words that could confuse some or that repeat, you would have a very strong logline.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Author of the LoglineOctober 12, 2011 at 11:45 PM

    Thanks again, everyone! I value all of your feedback. :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. This reads more like the back of the book blurb than a log line.

    Perhaps use your first sentence up until 'almost sixteen years' then go into the missing sister and how she must go to the earth plane to find her, then tell us what stands in her way, what she plans to do about it, and what will happen if she fails.

    Sounds like you've create a really cool world. Save the description of it for the query and synopsis.

    ReplyDelete