TITLE: Slowly the Avenger Comes
GENRE: Science Fiction
Special Investigator Emerson Edwards has made a career of bringing justice and security to the Galilean moons. But when the daughter of a PanSolar executive is found raped and murdered on Ganymede, the hunt for the perpetrator carries him to the very edge of the solar system. His abilities, and sanity, are pushed to the limit as a dark secret is revealed among the icy rocks of the Oort cloud.
Miss Snark's First Victim
This is a good start. I would combine the first two sentences and re-word the end into a more clear goal with stakes (why does HE need to catch this perpetrator NOW?) After that, the conflict is a little vague. Use your word count to show specific struggles rather than to describe clouds. We want to know why it is going to be REALLY HARD for him to catch this perpetrator.
ReplyDeleteGood luck!
Holly
Yeah, very nice.
ReplyDeleteJust to add to what Holly said, I'd want to know what abilities specifically are we talking about (to the degree word count allows).
Also, sentence one sets up potential stakes in Emerson's career, but sentence two doesn't follow through (i.e., it would make more sense to me if the death of the executive's daughter somehow threatened his job or reputation or something, rather than taking us off in an entirely different direction).
"Dark secret" is vague and caries no real threat.
I would also suggest emdashes before and after "and sanity" (i.e., "His abilities--and sanity--are pushed...").
[technically those aren't emdashes, but it's the best I could do in this comment box :)]
Hope that helps. Best of luck!
I feel like your first sentence is trying to hint at stakes, but it doesn't clearly come out and say it. That is, are the stakes related to the pride that Emerson takes in having brought justice and security to the moons? If that's the case, then your main plot has to do with the unraveling of justice and security.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree about the last sentence--way too vague. "Dark secret" could mean anything and be related to anyone. And do we need to know that he's going out to the Oort cloud?
Nice start. The moons and PanSolar reference reflect your genre. I agree, that last line should tell us more specifics: When [secret] is revealed, Emerson must [action] or else [threat]. Something like that.
ReplyDeleteCool, my novel takes place on Ganymede!
ReplyDeleteI would take "Slowly" out of the title of the novel.
This sounds very cool and interesting.
You might think about whether you could be clearer with the "if _______(Main Character) doesn't _______(Goal) he will ____________(Consequences)" format.
His goal is clearly to bring justice, what are the consequences if he fails? It also seems a bit long, mine used to also be three sentences, but I was able to boil it down to one or two. I think this could be snappier in two sentences without losing anything important in a logline.
I think this is quite strong overall, but it's a bit too long, and I agree that it gets too vague at the end. I know it's tricky to find that balance between hinting at a mystery that will intrigue the reader and giving everything away, but 'dark secret' is such a cliché and it just doesn't help to pull the reader in. This needs to give us a clearer idea of what's getting in his way of capturing the killer.
ReplyDeleteI also just wanted to mention that I'm rather puzzled by Holly's question 'Why does he need to catch this perpetrator now?' (I've seen her ask a similar question about other loglines where it also puzzled me, BTW, so it's something I may ask her about directly.) In this scenario the answers to that question seem very clear from the context: being a successful special investigator is clearly both his career and his raison d'etre, so of course he has to be the one to do this, and he has to do it now because time is always of an essence when you're pursuing a criminal...
Finally, I just want to say that I love your title, and I respectfully but strongly disagree with Mark's opinion about the word 'Slowly' -- I think that's what makes it poetic and really makes the title work! :)
This is quite intriguing. But I agree with the other commentators that the end is too vague.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I, too, am puzzled why a special investigator would need a reason to immediately investigate rape and murder. I will be interested to hear the reason, as the above commentator notes.
Good work!