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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Logline Critique Round Three #17

TITLE: Containment
GENRE: Adult/Dystopian

When a decorated veteran finds the brother he had thought was dead on display for tourists in the ruling family's park among the zombified "survivors" of a mysterious illness, he risks everything to fight the repressive regime for control over his brother's future.

6 comments:

  1. This one sounds really cool. My main question though, is the brother a zombie? That's not 100% clear. If he IS a zombie, what sort of future does our hero expect for him? And what exactly is he risking? I think just a few more specifics will really strengthen this one. Nice job though!

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  2. Nice! Good details and just enough information. But boy, is that a long sentence. Can you find a way to break it up? Good luck!

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  3. I hope this doesn't post twice :) first time didn't show up...

    This is really intriguing! It is a long sentence, but it reads smoothly overall. The only part I had to stop to sort out was the part about the brother being on display, and that was partly because it was such an unexpected situation that it took me a second to catch up. Kind of nit-picky, but I do think you could cut 'for tourists' and save a couple of words, since that's not really vital info.

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  4. Your obstacles are too vague here. "he risks everything to fight the repressive regime" doesn't tell me what he actually has to do (and thus why it will be hard). Also, "control over his brother's future" is kind of vague, too. Does he want to be the head of a committee that decides his brother's future or does he want him released or something else more specific?

    Good luck!
    Holly

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  5. Honestly, while I love the premise, I do find that long sentence discouraging. I love long sentences myself, but a log line is not the best place for them, in my opinion. My suggestion is something like this: {name of character} a decorated veteran, thought his brother long dead. When he finds him instead on display at a tourist's park that is run by the ruling family, he is thrown headlong into a fight with a repressive regime, a mysterious illness that turns "survivors" into zombies, and ... (whatever else is at stake). I'm just doing this on the fly, but basically I'm just suggesting breaking it down into two sentences, and giving a bit more clarity about what, exactly, he's fighting, and what's at stake. Good luck.

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  6. It seems that you're trying too hard to fit everything into one sentence. To me, doing so makes for a convoluted read. You may want to get what you want to say on paper and then tighten rather than trying to squeeze your ideas into a too-small format.
    Good luck!

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