Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Logline Critique Round Three #11

TITLE: In the Dead of Night
GENRE: YA Paranormal Thriller

A nyctophobic mage investigates a grisly series of murders at a boarding school for the supernatural.

6 comments:

  1. This is very concise but the stakes are missing. Why is the mage investigating and what's at stake here?

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  2. This sounds like an exciting premise, but I agree, with Chelly. What happens if the mage doesn't find out who the murderer is?

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  3. Nice succinct idea, but you might want to somehow define nyctophobic for people who don't know what it means.

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  4. This is missing most of the required elements. First, WHY would he do this? Does he know one of the victims? Does he feel personally responsible? Second, WHAT DOES HE HAVE TO LOSE if he doesn't investigate them? Will they continue? Will he or his loved one be the next victim? Third, is the GOAL really to investigate the murders or is it to identify the killer/stop the killer? If it's to investigate, then you story is over as soon as the investigation has begun.

    Good luck!
    Holly

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  5. The setting sounds interesting, but I find I want to know the name of the mage to help me connect with the story. I also am not sure why it matters that he/she investigates the murders. We are missing what's at stake and what the MC's goal is.

    I had to look up nyctophobic. The role of a logline is to grab your audience's interest and you should assume with a YA you may be speaking to people who are not familiar with the word. Better would be to just say "fear of the dark" instead. Simple, to the point. But also, leaves me wondering how the fear of the dark plays into the story. Is this the obstacle.

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  6. I'd like to know why the mage takes on the investigation - is it his job? Maybe if I knew what ncytophobic meant it would make more sense. You've got plenty of word count to use the logline to impart that information along with a stronger goal.
    But you definitely have a better handle on succinctness than I do!

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