Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Logline Critique, Round 1 #31

TITLE: Golden Boys
GENRE: Young Adult Historical Fiction

After killing a Missouri bigwig who tries to assault her, a Chinese girl along with a runaway slave disguise themselves as boys and seek their freedom in the frontier with a band of cowboys.

26 comments:

  1. Shhhhaaawing! You nailed it. Gives me all the information I need to understand the story. Great work. It's spot on and I like the interesting idea. Bravo.

    Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Sounds like a great read! I would suggest perhaps that you give us a name of your MC to make her more personal. Thats a nitpick though. Great job!

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  3. I'm immediately curious about how they disguise themselves well enough to fool cowboys. Great logline! I'd like to know the time frame; e.g., 1880s frontier.

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  4. Wow! Right off the bat! Great job. I would read this, and I hardly ever touch historical fiction. Pat yourself on the back!

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  5. definitely sounds like a good book! i like that you're exploring that period of chinese-american history.

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  6. Love, love, love it! Would definitely pick this one up. In fact...you don't happen to have the first few pages posted anywhere do you?

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  7. Love this! My only suggestion is to tell us your MC's name.

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  8. This sounds awesome! I was going to suggest you give us the MC's name, but others already mentioned that.

    Nice job!

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  9. I like this! Give your main character's name to be more specific. Also, I'm curious if they are disguising themselves to get into the cowboy group or if the group knows of their status and their disguises are for protection from outsiders.

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  10. I too love this logline, and agree with all the previous comments. However, one thing I realized is that we don't know the stakes or the true conflict! I suppose we could infer that their freedom is at stake, and their true identities, but maybe flesh this out a bit more in the second paragraph.

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  11. You've got the setup down but the rest is missing. Who is going to stop her from obtaining her freedom and what will happen if she fails? Is the family of the Missouri bigwig trying to hunt her down? Or are the police after her because she killed someone? We need some stakes here.

    Small tidbit: change "along" to "and".

    Good luck!
    Holly

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  12. This is great, and it's definitely picked up my interest, but I agree with Holly Bodger & others. Where are the stakes?

    Good job!

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  13. I'm in L.O.V.E. with this!!! Simple n' swift n' puts all the story points on the page....FABULOUS!

    Good luck n' ROCK ON!

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  14. I think this logline is my favorite. It's concise, clear, and intriguing. Nice job.

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  15. Thank you so much for your comments everyone; I so appreciate them! Stakes. . . that would be what happens if the law finds her. . the noose!

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  16. Really great!! I agree with the suggestion to change 'along' to 'and'. Actually, I think a bit of reordering or=f words are in order. 'After killing a Missouri biqwig who tries to assault her, a Chinese girl and a runaway slave seek freedom in the frontier by disguising themselves as boys with a band of cowboys.' Actually, maybe not. Just something to think about. This is really great :D

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  17. I want to read this right now. Seriously. It better get published so's I can read it.

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  18. This is really good. I'm hanging up a bit on the along. If you change it to and it sounds like both if them were assualted. other than that, I think you nailed it.

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  19. I really like this one. I don't generally read historical fiction but you have me intrigued. I don't need to know names, like some suggested, but I would like to know the stakes. Let us know what's at stake and you'll be golden.

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  20. I loved this. I actually disagree with some of the others, I don't know that I would add more about the stakes. I personally felt the stakes are inferred, she killed a man. I feel like clearly stating the stakes would weight down and already concise and snappy logline.

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  21. Thanks Katherine, i felt that way too. I really did not want to overdo it.

    Also, I also got really hung up about the "along" versus the "and" and if anyone has anymore input on this I would love to hear it. I did not want the reader to think both assaulted the bigwig, since this is MC's burden only. . just like Eliza's comment (thanks Eliza!)

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  22. You've done an excellent job of being succinct, but I think you've taken it a bit far. At the moment, there's no obstacle. The Chinese girl killed the obstacle in her path in the backstory, so what further problems do she and the slave face in the frontier? Give us a few more specifics and this will sing.

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  23. Hi Stacy!

    I agree that "along" works better than "and." It's more precise and it flows better. And yes, stakes are definitely implied!

    I love this, by the way!

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