TITLE: MIGHTY MIKE AND THE INTERGALACTIC CANDY DISPENSER
GENRE: MG Science Fiction
Eleven-year-old Mike wants to become NASA’s youngest astronaut. When he learns the Pan-galactic emperor plans to close Earth to space travel unless human allergies to alien worlds are recorded, he volunteers to eat candies from an intergalactic test dispenser – which give him temporary superpowers. But only his inner superhero can save him from a four-armed, snout-faced alien determined that Mike fails.
Great title. Fun premise. The word Pan-galactic stumped me a bit. How about Universal Ruler or Ultimate Emperor, especially for MG audience. If you can simplify your words and get to the superpowers a bit faster in the sentence structure. Maybe something about why the alien wants to block his success, too. Hard to fit it all!
ReplyDeleteSeems a tad long for a logline. I'm not sure that we need all the details about allergies and candies--can you find a way to simplify those specific things? Perhaps it's that the jump between serious astronaut and silly candy eating feels a bit--unearned?--in this logline?
ReplyDeleteMy brother, Mike, would love this story! Becoming a superhero even for a few hours is everyone's dream!
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
This sounds like a lot of fun. What confused me was the seriousness of the first line and the real life reference to NASA, compared to the silliness of the candy dispenser and the reference to the Pan-galactic. Could we only have one space agency reference in the logline? Also, do we need to know about the alien allergies? I had to read that twice. Maybe all we need to know is he wants to be a space traveler so he jumps at the chance to test out alien candy dispenser?
ReplyDeleteI mostly feel confused. How does eating candy test allergies? In what way could he fail (other than dying, since that seems the most likely, given the allergy test). Who would let a child be the tester for alien allergies?
ReplyDeleteThe first line is perfect. The second line is a bit more problematic as it does not appear to incite a goal that will fulfil the need. How will eating alien candies help HIM become an astronaut NOW? And what is this snout-faced alien trying to make him fail at? Becoming an astronaut or eating the candies or recording allergies? The obstacles must directly oppose the goal so if his goal is to participate in this test so that he somehow becomes an astronaut, you need to make it clear that the alien is trying to stop that.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
Holly
I think this is great. But it's wordy and convoluted at parts, especially: "When he learns the Pan-galactic emperor plans to close Earth to space travel unless human allergies to alien worlds are recorded". Some words that make it convoluted either do to length, uniqueness (too much unique isn't always good), or confusion, are Pan-galactic, emperor, space travel, allergies, alien words, and recorded. Keep it simple: "When he learns they might close space travel due to a possible allergy epidemic spread through space..." something like that?
ReplyDeleteNice work. I agree that the first two lines are heading somewhere intriguing, then once I hit the volunteering to eat candies sort of dilutes for me. Not sure what that part means. The superpowers seem fun though, and the silliness plays well to MG as far as I can tell. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDelete