TITLE: ELECTRIFIED
GENRE: Young Adult Urban Fantasy
When seventeen-year-old Mira Cunningham's younger brother, her only remaining family, goes missing, she alone can save him before he's killed. While searching for her brother, she gets trapped in a New York Electric machine room and gets electrified. With her hands able to zap, knock out or even kill others, she goes on a mission to Kroy Wen, the ugly underbelly of New York City to find him. She must fight the bone-crushing aliens called Seducca, stop a two-headed demon and deceitful sorcerer as well as a local hero who's on her tail after she steals an ancient medallion used to find lost persons. If she fails, she will die along with the entire teen population of the city.
There seems to be way way too much information in this. What's the main thrust of the story? She wants to find her kidnapped brother. What prevents her from achieving this goal? It seems like there's a lot of people after her because she stole an ancient medallion to help her find the missing brother. What does her achieving powers have to do with her stealing the medallion? Was she only able to do it by becoming powerful? Did she know this stipulation before she got powers or did she only discover the existence of the medallion because she's now powerful?
ReplyDeleteI would start out simpler - there is too much information in this log line.
ReplyDeleteIf her younger brother was kidnapped, maybe say that he was kidnapped instead of "missing." Find a snappier way to write about the electrical powers: "During an electrifying accident, Mira developed the power to..." okay, that's not so great, but I hope you understand what I'm getting at. It should be short, sweet, and totally awesome.
I think this sounds like an interesting plot, but the log line itself needs to be more concise.
Lots of cool-looking stuff here, but I agree that for a logline, you'll need to focus on the essentials. Maybe combine the idea of finding her brother and gaining her electric powers into one sentence, then mention the dangers of Kroy Wen more generally. Definitely keep in those stakes that are set up in the final sentence. This shows lots of promise; it just needs some trimming.
ReplyDeleteFundamental problem with the premise for me: she becomes the sole salvation for all the teens in NYC just because of pure coincidence (happening to get electrified). Seems like you're trying to cram in every plot point of every movie. This needs a common thread and MC motivation.
ReplyDeleteI agree that this needs paring right back before you can think about maybe adding a few details of interest back in.
ReplyDeleteWhile searching for her missing brother, seventeen year old Mira has an accident that endows her with with electrifying powers - and she'll need them if she's going to save herself, her brother and the teen population from the denizens of New York's magical underbelly.
Ok, sorry for butchering your story and writing a rubbish logline, but maybe that will give you some ideas :D
The first line is okay although I do think you could cut it down a little. (For example, "When seventeen-year-old Mira Cunningham's younger brother goes missing, she realizes it is up to her to save him.") If she has some kind of powers here, you could re-word this to explain WHY she is the one who must save him.
ReplyDeleteThen, I think you should list the challenges all at once such as, "To do so, she must go to New York where she has to battle X, escape Y and fight Z. Finally, try to tie the consequences back to the original goal. If she's doing this to save her brother, you need to say that she must succeed or she will lose him. You can add the other consequences as well but don't focus on them. The main point is to give the personal consequences for the main character (in this case, she will have no family left).
Good luck!
Holly
This sounds like an exciting premise and I think you've already received some great advice, but what this makes me wonder is why her brother was ever kidnapped in the first place.
ReplyDeleteWhy do all the bad guys want him so badly? It seems odd that all this mayhem would happen over some random kid, so perhaps add the motivation of the bad guys. Why do they want to kill the entire teen population of NY city? WHy there and nowhere else? Why just teens? And what does her brother have to do with it all?
There seems to be too much information here. What is the MC's main struggle? I'd try and focus on that. Something like 'When seventeen-year old Mira Cunningham's brother and only remaining family member goes missing, she sets out on a mission to Kroy Wen, the ugly underbelly of New York City, to find him.' Okay so I guess there still needs to be something in there about the stakes, but this is an idea to get all the other back story out of the way. Hope I've helped :D
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of the electrical powers, but I agree with everyone else that you need a tighter, more focused logline. Try for no more than two or three sentences if you can.
ReplyDelete