mrliteral

Recent reviews

• on When the feisty pirate emperor kidnaps their kingdom, an abominable feline-human boy and a weak princess must find someone in the “awfully violent” neighboring empire closed enough to accuse him to the emperor’s dubious mother before marrying their queen in a wrestling presentation.

  Now pare down that detail into the protagonist, antagonist, conflict, and stakes, in one sentence, with an indication of tone and genre. Then try other verbs and adjectives, see what sounds good. Be clear, be simple, be concise. And always…

• on When the feisty pirate emperor kidnaps their kingdom, an abominable feline-human boy and a weak princess must find someone in the “awfully violent” neighboring empire closed enough to accuse him to the emperor’s dubious mother before marrying their queen in a wrestling presentation.

  Then surely help will be offered once additional logline-relevant details or questions are posted.

• on When the feisty pirate emperor kidnaps their kingdom, an abominable feline-human boy and a weak princess must find someone in the “awfully violent” neighboring empire closed enough to accuse him to the emperor’s dubious mother before marrying their queen in a wrestling presentation.

  What are you talking about? Why are you giving orders? Who are you? Do you want logline feedback or not?

• on When the feisty pirate emperor kidnaps their kingdom, an abominable feline-human boy and a weak princess must find someone in the “awfully violent” neighboring empire closed enough to accuse him to the emperor’s dubious mother before marrying their queen in a wrestling presentation.

  If it's obvious your post is unclear and improper, why did you post it? One can't offer advice without even comprehending the intention. Who are the protagonist and antagonist? What is the conflict, what are the stakes? These are what's…

• on A 16-year-old ambitious dancer and her boyfriend discover that she is pregnant before her important competition and have to make a decision.

  That's the conflict -- what's the story? All characters have to make decisions; it's the basis of every scene they're in...at least it should be. Loglines are the protagonist, antagonist, conflict, and stakes. These are hinted at here but not…

• on When the feisty pirate emperor kidnaps their kingdom, an abominable feline-human boy and a weak princess must find someone in the “awfully violent” neighboring empire closed enough to accuse him to the emperor’s dubious mother before marrying their queen in a wrestling presentation.

  Not clear what the story is, who these characters are, or what they're doing...not even a proper sentence. What is the goal here?

• on When a girl addicted to her phone learns that the phone also is addicted to her and won’t let her go, she must find a way to get rid of it before it destroys all aspects of her life. Be it personal, professional, financial, social, physical and spiritual. All aspects are affected.

  There's a post and reply somewhere on this site about that formula and why it fails to be compelling -- but also, every story starts when something happens...that's a given. It's a useless word where every syllable matters.

• on When a girl addicted to her phone learns that the phone also is addicted to her and won’t let her go, she must find a way to get rid of it before it destroys all aspects of her life. Be it personal, professional, financial, social, physical and spiritual. All aspects are affected.

  Always limit a logline to once sentence, 25-30 words, without commas when appropriate. Include the protagonist, antagonist, conflict, and stakes. Try to end on the hook, the inherent irony, so people think "Oh that's interesting..." If they like the logline,…

• on After her brother’s death, a college student must track down someone who created a deadly video streaming online who kills anyone who watches it.

  If you drop everything in front of the comma it creates a simpler phrase without the unnecessary pause. Also it forces a reader to wonder about "her" when no protagonist has yet been mentioned, and you want a reader to…

• on A former tour guide suffering from a rare degenerative retinal disease braves a hostile environment to reach the work of art he most venerates before losing his sight forever.

  What kind of hostile environment? A meteoroid hurtling through space and a kindergarten class are very different environments but both could be considered hostile. Loglines should be specific, whereas vague phrases don't really tell us what the movie is about.…

• on A team of intrepid explorers develop the first faster than light drive to take humanity to the stars. The only thing in their way is humanity itself.

  Okay...so what happens? How is humanity an obstacle in this story? What are the personal stakes for one or all of these intrepid folks? Loglines should be one sentence, and faster-than-light should be hyphenated in this context. Would the explorers…

• on After a NDE a social media executive weighted with the ability to see past lives and now tasked with healing her “soul family” uses her position to embed herself in the lives of those around her to circumvent karma that foreshadows current life situations that could tragically repeat past life patterns.

  Way too long and with rather poor grammar, plus the apparent inciting incident is an abbreviation without explanation...how is anyone supposed to understand the character or story if they don't know what NDE means? I personally have no clue what…

• on When a village boy is given up for sacrifice to avoid a Giant and a Dragon destroying the village, he must find a way to escape before being cooked into dumplings.

  Never start a logline with When. Start with the protagonist, then provide the antagonist, conflict, & stakes. Avoid commas. 25-30 words. So what happens to the village when this kid escapes? Is he concerned about that? Why was he chosen?…

• on After their father was murdered, a gambler and his sister team up to take down a drug lord in their own hands in order for them to pay for their mother’s cancer treatment.

  If the drug lord murdered the father there's no mention of it here; it's unrelated to the main focus of the story. You could just remove that part (plus "in their own hands" because what does that even mean) and…

• on A high school student becomes an unwitting pawn in a game between two teachers, and she must find a way to outwit them in order for her to get accepted to university.

  What game are the teachers playing? How is it related to a student's being accepted elsewhere? How can she outwit others when she's unwitting? You're describing a conflict without actually telling us what the story is about. It has to…

• on A cyborg hunter must protect a young woman by killing a cyborg before he turns her into one.

  "A cyborg hunter must protect a young woman by killing a cyborg before he turns her into one." Totally unclear who's who and what they're doing and why it matters. Does "cyborg hunter" mean a hunter of cyborgs or a…

• on A moving man, unaware of valuable objects in his storage, finds himself chased by mobsters on one side and the US military on the other.

  Any main character who "finds himself" in a situation is automatically going to appear passive. It's a phrase I always advise against using -- because if the logline is presented this way, and the script plays out this way, it…

• on A dangerous serial killer charms his way into a single Mom’s life which brings a talented FBI agent out of retirement to work on the case whilst supernatural Neptune is also awakened to help.

  Unclear what's actually happening here...on what case is the retired agent working? The serial killer case? What brings him out of retirement? It can't be the death of this single mom, because apparently she's only being charmed by the killer,…

• on The stag night before his wedding, a man is handcuffed to a stripper – who turns out to be wanted by cops, the mob, and her psychotic boyfriend.

  You have some good plot details as far as conflict, but tell us about the guy all this is happening to: what's he like? If he's the main character we need to understand his perspective of the events in which…

• on It’s 2151 and a bio scientist finds herself in the middle of the largest coverup in history. She begins a race against time to expose her former CEO?s deceit or else mankind changes forever.

  Still not making any sense and has extraneous apostrophes. Why does it matter what year it is? There's nothing else described here which couldn't be happening right now. Why does it matter that she's timid? How does this character trait…