When the demons of a long forgotten past return to haunt Jack at the death of his wife of fifty years, he must return to his place of youth to finally confront and put them to rest.

Thanks, guys, for the comments and questions. This is a project I've been working (or struggling) on for about three years now. I'm attempting to adapt an old friend's novel (he passed away quite some time ago). It takes place over a period of about twenty five years and I want to get as much of the original story into the screenplay as I can. I thought about having the main character at the end of his life reflecting on his dark past and relating it to his grown children. In essence, they are learning about a father they never knew.

I will post my original logline for the straight narrative and look forward to your feedback on it.

Thanks again

David Cripe:

I respond to a logline in 1 of 3 ways:

1] Wow! (Curiosity. That's interesting, tell me more!)
2] Huh? (Puzzlement. It's doesn't make sense.)
3] Yawn. (Disinterest. It's boring, unoriginal)

"Huh?" is my response to your logline. If your logline was something along the line of: "After his wife of 51 years dies, a man dies of grief and loneliness", I would have no problem understanding the logic, the CAUSAL connection between her death and his death. Because that actually happens in real life.

But I just don't understand the CAUSAL connection between death of the wife and the appearance of the ghosts. That doesn't compute with my knowledge and experience. It doesn't make sense to me. It may be causal to your story but it's not logical to me. (I don't understand what these "demons", "ghosts" or "shadows" are either.)

The emergence of these "demons", "ghosts" or "shadows" after the death of the wife seems to be central to the story so I'm not suggesting you cut it out. I'm only suggesting that the causal connection may not work in the logline. At least not in this iteration. It seems to raise more questions than curiosity.

One way around the problem might be to frame the logline in this manner: "A grieving widower must confront ghosts from his past or else..." but I don't enough about the story to know what the "or else" -- the stakes, consequences of failure -- is.

fwiw.

And what must he do once he gets there?

The stakes seem very low for this story. He has to return to his childhood home? Who is trying to stop him? What makes it difficult? What happens if he fails to do this?

This was my first question too ...

>>from a previous life

Re-incarnation, then?

>>finally confront and put them to rest

Film is a visual medium and every component in a logline should describe something that can be visualized, shown on screen. So what's the visual on "put to rest"?

And if he fails? IOW: What's at stake? What does he stand to lose if he fails?

The demons refer to shadows from a previous life. And the genre is drama, but now that you mention it, it could drift into melodrama. Thanks for the questions.

Are these literal demons or are they metaphorical demons? IOW: what's the genre: horror or melodrama?