TITLE: Tripplehorn Parker, Hesitant Heroine Extraordinaire
GENRE: MG Adventure
An adventure-phobic, 12-year-old debate champ struggles to find her inner heroine when she receives a secret message the night before leaving for the African bush with her researcher parents. Tapped to protect a golden idol of ancient legend, she must use her smarts to outwit a nasty herd of bad guys who would kill to exploit the idol’s rumored power to control destiny—her family’s survival and the fate of the world depend on it.
Miss Snark's First Victim
So cute! I love your premise. What do you mean by tapped to protect? should that have been trapped? Even that doesn't really make sense. I also wouldn't use herd in reference to a group of people.
ReplyDeleteI love the concept, too! You've get internal and external conflict, setting, character and consequences. I liked the word herd, considering she's in the African bush. The last sentence is rambling. Try to pare it down to essentials or split into 2 sentences if you absolutely must.
ReplyDeleteNasty is a somewhat tame adjective that fails to convey the life and death stakes of controlling destiny.
ReplyDeleteI suggest providing the main character's name prior to "an" in the very beginning of your logline. The second sentance lost me at Tapped - where are her parents? Why is it up to her alone to protect the idol? The dash in your last sentance to mention the fate of the world is a bit disjointed and feels slightly cliche to me. A little tidy work is needed here and you've got a great logline to go with a great idea. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a fun and exciting story. I did get stuck on "Tapped." Who tapped her to protect the idol? Maybe a specific circumstance that indicates she's the only one who can accomplish this task, for example, ancient hieroglyphics spell out her name, etc. Also, I would take out "rumored" in the last sentence. The idol's power should not be in question if the stakes are this high. Great story idea --best wishes!
ReplyDeleteThis is great! It's got character, setting and antagonists and the premise is different. What do you mena by tapped? And I can't decide whether the bad guys need a little more desription, since leaving it at that does suit the genre.
ReplyDeleteI’ve seen the first page of this book and loved it, but I think that this logline is a little word- and info-heavy. There are a lot of adjectives and descriptive phrases you could shed—for instance, “golden idol of ancient legend” could be trimmed to “ancient idol,” and maybe “African bush” can just be “Africa,” or better yet, name the country instead. And does it really add anything to tell us that that she’s a debate champ in the logline? I think that just telling us that she’s adventure-phobic is much more evocative. (Consider, too, whether we really need to know that her parents are researchers or that the bad guys are potential killers—all this info just takes the focus off your main character.)
ReplyDeleteAlso, the action happening in each of the two sentences in the logline is pretty much the same—Tripplehorn struggles to find her inner heroine, and must use her smarts to save the day. I think you’d be better served to restructure and use the first sentence for setup (she’s an adventure-phobe who moves to Africa and is given a mission she didn’t expect) and the second for the specific actions she has to take to (however hesitantly) deal with the situation.
Good luck!
I like this concept and the other comments covered most of what I was going to say. I'd definitely pop the MC name into the logline, even if it is in the title.
ReplyDeleteAwesome setting!
I think Tara nailed everything I had to say above. I feel like you're trying to cram too much info into this logline. Having said that, I love the humorous voice and the set-up for an awesome adventure story. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI like the premise. You do have to trim the adjectives. "Debate champ" is unique enough, but I'm not sure if it adds anything to the logline. "researcher parents" can just be "parents". The second sentence is a mouthful. You can take out many of the adjectives to make it more compelling. Focus on the basics of the stakes and the action.
ReplyDeleteThe first line needs to be re-worded so that your inciting incident (the secret message) is inciting her to do something. I'm not sure what that is but I think it may be protect the idol although that is a little vague. Is she going to stand in front of it for the rest of her life or does she just need to protect it from one herd of bad guys for a specified period of time? We need to see the end goal here.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
Holly
I like this and thought it worked pretty well. You might say how she was tapped, and by whom. And instead of protecting the idol, she might perhaps have to rescue it. (Protecting it could last a lifetime.) And that last bit should probably be it's own sentence, but you could cut it and, instead, say why the mc takes this quest upon herself (motivtion) which might very well be to save her parents and the world, just couch it in terms that make it the mc's mission.
ReplyDelete