Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Logline Critique Round One #25

TITLE: Rerun
GENRE: Thriller

Jordan finds herself in a time loop, courtesy of a friend. He’s been repeating the same forty four years for millennia, but Jordan's repeatedly killed. Waking up as a nine year old is awkward, waking up with memories of being murdered is a nightmare. How far will she go to stop it when her murderer is caught in the same time loop?



7 comments:

  1. Oo I love the premise! But I want to know more about the unnamed friend (you should name him because the "he" in the next sentence threw me - Jordan can be a guy's name too). Why did this friend bring her into the time loop? Is Jordan happy or unhappy about this turn of events (one adjective in the first sentence can tell us this)? Are there timey-wimey dangers posed by the murderer - like if he kills Jordan at the wrong time the world tasks apart? You've done a great job telling us the problem and the course of action, but make the stakes clearer.

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    1. And by "tasks" I meant "falls"... #mobileproblems

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  2. Lose the first two sentences completely, they sound stale, and the friend never even gets named. Your best sentence is the one that begins, "Waking up..." Start with that, it has real punch!

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  3. Sorry, I am completely lost by this one. Does Jordan want to get out of the time loop because she doesn't like getting killed over and over again? If so, you need to establish that as her goal and then tell us how she will get out and who will try to stop her.

    FYI - do not ask questions in a logline. A logline is meant to explain your character's journey. Asking a question is like having an agent say, "What's your book about?" and answering with "What do YOU think it's about?" :-)

    Good luck!
    Holly

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  4. Naming the friend might avoid some confusion. Since Jordon could be a male or female name, I'm not sure if Jordon is the guy repeating the 40 years or the girl getting killed over and over again.

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  5. You can drop the first sentence altogether because you say the same thing in the second. However, as written, the second sentence confuses me. Who is the "he" who's repeating the same 44 years? Is it the friend? The first time I read it, I assumed it was Jordan, but if Jordan is a she, who is the he? And then the last sentence is too vague. You have to tell me how far she's willing to go, or at least how far she thinks she might need to go. Then I'll be interested in following her journey.

    I don't usually like to offer re-writes, but I think an example might help. Maybe you could start off like this:

    Every forty-four years, Jordan wakes up as a nine-year-old child and re-lives the same four-and-a-half decades until she’s murdered. Over and over. For millennia. To break the time loop, she’ll have to… (whatever obstacle she has to overcome).

    Sounds like a great story. I hope this helps.

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  6. This line gave me some issues: "but Jordan's repeatedly killed." That could either mean that she has been killed or that she has killed others. And since I don't know anything about Jordan, I have nothing to help me decide.

    I think there's a good concept here, it just has to be explained a bit clearer.

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