Where screenwriters learn the form and logline their screen ideas.
This is the story about a young woman, with a deceased father who wasn’t very forth coming with his feelings, and is now targeted by the entiry her father helped murder.
I've no idea what 'shucking means' - so it depends - do you expect your readers / producers / directors to look up words in their dictionaries - or do you only want to attract those who know the word. Being English (forgive me) it just reminds me of shucks and Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Movie sounds cool though, like Children of the Corn.
Isn't that the whole idea? To stir your imaginings by using words and phrases that are not cliche? "Skinning" has been done; "shucking" is fresh, nasty and just sounds more painful!
Why not just say "skinning" his prey alive instead of "shucking". Shucking makes me think of oysters not people.
Wereviking: I believe the "hook" and ironic twist are two different things. The "hook" CAN be an ironic twist, but an ironic twist is not necessarily the hook. The hook is the part of your story that separates it from all of the others in that genre. In this story, to me, it sound sas if the "husking" or shucking of the victim's skin, while alive, is a particularly gruesome way to die (or NOT die), and plays into the location, State of Nebraska- United States- which is known for, among other things, their rolling cornfields. One picks and shucks the "husks" of corn, so I imagine it is a play on that.
McCreedy- I appreciate using my suggestion as a model for the new logline, although it is not necessary. I personally do not think "young, mid-western" is either intriguing or original. Might want to find other characteristics about her to use to describe her. This is where the irony comes in. Imagine a college professor without a HS diploma; a marriage counselor who has been divorced seven times; a kindergarten teacher who hates kids; an English princess who runs off to live with an American plumber in a trailer park (one of my comedies, "Royal Flush")...
Shucking? Not sure what the aversion is to a straight-forward "skinning". Is it just the means of killing? Would be cool to do more with it than that. Is that who your protagonist was already or has she just emerged through the logline process? Some hook or what the Americans call an ironic twist still seems to be missing.
All your comments have been super helpful, Please continue. How do you feel about this revision?
"A young mid-western woman is stalked by the spirit of a murdered psychopath who seeks his revenge by shucking his prey alive."