TITLE: Ruby and the Legend of the Dragon Fern Tear
GENRE: YA Fantasy
After fifteen year-old Ruby moves to Ireland, she learns a mind-boggling secret; she’s a fairy from the Kingdom of Derval, which is destined to perish in seven days unless she finds the legendary Dragon Tear and reverses her grandmother’s curse.
Ruby’s nearly impossible task becomes even more difficult when in hopes of obtaining the Tear for herself and ruling Derval, the evil witch Melina casts a spell on Ruby changing her into a forgetful troll. Ruby must find the Tear and restore the enchanted realm’s power. If she fails Melina will rule Derval and Ruby will remain a troll forever.
Miss Snark's First Victim
This sounds like an interesting read -- after the first paragraph. I get a little lost in the details after that. Your first sentence really tells us all we need to know. I would stop it short.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Jane. That first sentence is pretty much all we need.
ReplyDeleteIf you feel you need to include the rest of it, boil it down to the facts:
Ruby is turned into a troll.
Ruby must find the tear to break a curse.
If Ruby fails, she stays a troll and the bad guy wins.
If this were mine (and it's not so feel free to ignore) I'd try something like this-
After learning she's a fairy, Ruby gets turned into a troll by an evil witch. If she wants to save herself--and the Kingdom!--she'll have to find the Dragon Tear, but no one's seen it in a century.
Or something like that. Good luck
This sounds like a really fun story. There's too much detail included here for a logline, though. I think you can cut it down to the most basic conflict and still keep the flavor of the story.
ReplyDeleteSomething like:
After fifteen year-old Ruby moves to Ireland, she learns she’s a fairy from the cursed Kingdom of Derval. To save her kingdom, Ruby races against time and the evil witch Melina to find the legendary Dragon Tear.
If you want to keep the second/further description of your plot, remove the first part and begin, "When the evil witch Melina turns Ruby into a forgetful Troll, her task becomes almost impossible, but...insert rest of conflict" Saying she's a forgetful troll but has all those details to remember means she has to have a deep and firey motivation to overcome all her obstacles. Perhaps some mention of that would balance all the challenges she is facing giving us hope as a potential reader.
ReplyDeleteOh, I know this one! :-)
ReplyDelete1. I'm kinda thrown off by the "and ruling Derval". If her goal is to save Derval, why does she need to rule it? I thought she just had to find the Tear?
2. How can Melina rule Derval if it's going to perish in 7 days? Is she only going to rule it for 7 days? Or is she going to save it only so she can rule it?
3. The forgetful troll thing throws me off. I'm not sure I understand how she can have a goal is she's forgetful. If this is a conflict (ie, she needs to find the Tear but now that she's a troll, she can no longer remember anything) then you need to make that more clear.
Overall, I think you need to focus this on the main elements and get rid of anything we don't need to know. The main items are that Ruby is a fairy and she alone can save Derval. Unfortunately, Melina wants Derval for herself and will do anything, including turning her into a troll, to get it. If Ruby doesn't defeat Melina, Melina will do something really bad to Ruby and Derval.
Good luck!
Holly
I wouldn't drop the second paragraph altogether because it has the very personal stakes in it. No one wants to be a troll forever! Just find a way to tighten the two into something more concise. You've got a good start here. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteThe first sentence could be shortened. In fact, the entire logline could be tightened.
ReplyDeleteJust keep what's needed.
I chuckled about her being a forgetful troll. Of course, it would be difficult to find the Dragon Tear if she forgets everything.
Great story ideas.
This sounds so exciting and has a great setting. I think that there was enough with just the first paragraph, but there's some great advice above how to compact the second.
ReplyDeleteOverall though I love the sound of it.
I agree about it being too long--I really love foxfyre's suggestion!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a really, really fun read.
I agree that this logline is a bit long and contains too much information.Try something like what foxfyre suggested but maybe also try to get in more stuff about her motivation (ie: remaining a troll forever).
ReplyDeleteI think you need both pargs.that way you keep the stakes and the antagonist in there. (My personal theory is to err on the side of too much info, rather than not enough.) We should know what she's up against and what the stakes are. But you could condense it a bit.
ReplyDelete15 year-old Ruby moves to Ireland, and learns she is a fairy from the kingdom of Derval, destined to perish in 7 days unless she finds the legendary Dragon Tear and reverses her grandmother's curse.
Her task becomes more difficult when the evil witch, Melina, turns her into a forgetful troll. Now Ruby must find the tear before the witch, or Melina will rule Derval and Ruby will remain a troll forever.
I'd leave 'forgetful' in there because it's a plot element rather than just a descriptor.
Nice job! ;-)
Thanks ;-)
ReplyDelete