TITLE: Third Time's A Curse
GENRE: YA Supernatural
Investigating a haunted road seemed like a fun idea, until fourteen-year-old Tish Reilly and her friends uncovered two vengeful spirits and a deep buried secret. Now Tish must find a way to help the ghosts move on or become the final play in a deadly game started long ago.
Miss Snark's First Victim
ooo, I like it.
ReplyDeleteI like this, it's intriguing. One note - I think you need to change deep to deeply. Also, I feel like "long ago" isn't as strong as the rest of it. You might want to play around with other options to make it really pop. Maybe "started long before she was even born."?
ReplyDeleteThis might be nitpicky, but I'd prefer present tense for the first sentence. Otherwise, I love this and I would read the book. :)
ReplyDeleteI like this a lot. The title is great too.
ReplyDeleteThe logline is very well-written, but I've seen this premise before. I think you need just a little something more to show what's unique about your story--maybe the setting, maybe a detail about Tish other than her age, or a hint as to what the secret might be.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rebecca--a few more details on the secret and who Tish is will set this apart from other YA ghost stories. This pitch is definitely on the right track.
ReplyDeleteGreat pitch. Great title. I'd read it.
ReplyDeleteYour title and the tone of your logline says "Middle Grade" to me, and then your protagonist's age straddles the awkward line between MG & YA. I've heard from agents that protags that are 14 (and sometimes 15) just don't work b/c they do straddle that line.
ReplyDeleteIf the overall tone of your book is YA, I would age your MC up to at least 15 and then alter the tone of your logline to match. "Investigating a haunted road seemed like a fun idea" = feels MG & I was expecting a 12-year-old protag. If it's MG, I would age your MC down to 13 or 12.
That aside, I want to see more specifics from your logline. All I know about your MC is her age and that she has friends. You have some good buzz words for your plot/set-up--vengeful ghosts, deadly game--but the rest is wasting precious word count and not saying much about the book. I would tighten, come up with some concise, clever ways to give a sense of character, and personalize the stakes/conflict (as "they might die!" is pretty common/very broad).
Oh my! I love supernatural/paranormal. Pay attention the age of your main character. Like the other readers and commentators above said the age of 14 is on the fence for MG and YA. Also, I strongly feel that loglines should be ONE sentence. I could be wrong but I think one sentence loglines are stronger than two or three sentences. You do not need to spell out every detail in the logline, leave that for reading the book. I would read this book!!
ReplyDeleteI found this SUPER intriguing but a little too vague in places. The last line especially. The logline will pack a bit more punch if you get some more concrete details in, I think, though basically, it's very strong. Well done!
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction was that I like this one a lot, but I am a teeny bit concerned that this is a type of story that has already been done many times. Is there something particularly distinctive about your story that you could include to make the logline more memorable?
ReplyDeleteAlso, Karie is right that it should be a 'deeply' buried secret instead. However, this might be the point where you could be more specific, since 'buried secrets' are one of those concepts that have become a cliché.
The goal here needs to be more specific than helping the ghosts move on. What does she actually need them to do and why? And where are her friends in this scenario? Finally, "become the final play in a deadly game" is a fancy way of not stating the stakes. What will actually happen if she fails? The ghosts will kill her?
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
Holly
Loved this logline. This is so close to being perfect. Just a few notes: keep the whole thing in the present tense (change "uncovered" etc.) Also, "long ago" needs tension. Who is going to die? "Deadly game" feels tense, but doesn't tell me who's life is at stake.
ReplyDeleteSounds like an exciting read. Good luck!
Oh, and "deep" needs to be changed to "deeply".
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alexa. Your logline reads as more Middle Grade to me. And I'm not sure if a 14 yr old MC is old enough to qualify as a YA unless there's romance involved. (Because the main difference between the two is MG tends to be more focused on adventure and friendship, and YA more world-saving, self discovery, and romance from my experience.) So I'm not sure if the YA listing quite fits here. Something to consider.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was basically there. You could say what the 'final play' is, which will it make it more suspenseful.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'd say 'deeply' too, instead of deep, and 'uncover' instead of uncovered.