Saturday, October 27, 2012

BD One Last Chance Logline #55

Round 3 Original Post #2

TITLE: MARGARET ETHEL
GENRE: YA supernatural

Sixteen-year-old trouble maker, Margaret, returns from the grave to stop her best friend from committing the seven deadly sins. Failure means spending eternity apart. Margaret will go to Heaven and her friend will go to that other place — you know the one.

Imagine if Dennis the Menace were the guardian angel in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.

9 comments:

  1. Haha. The last line made me laugh. It made me want to see what kind of trouble these two will get into.

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  2. Great voice! I'm not sure the Dennis the Menace reference (while definitely fun) belongs with the logline. It'd be great in the query though.

    Good luck.

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  3. Love the "--you know the one" finish on the first para. Adds a great pop of voice. I find myself questioning why Margaret is set going to Heaven when she's apparently a trouble-maker?

    I'd lose the Dennis the Menace line here for sure--maybe ok for query, altho feels a little young for YA?

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  4. I like it, it's clippy, but the use of Dennis the Menace seems anachronistic to me, and maybe not age-appropriate for YA. Can you pick something more relevant or recent? Patrick Swayze in Ghost?

    Also, as you have the real estate of 75 words, could you flesh out why the best friend is bent on committing the seven deadly sins? Is she diabolical? Oblivious? Self-destructive? In true need of redemption? A hint of what's going on there could add another layer of intrigue to the story and deepen the emotional stakes.

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  5. The last line is funny, but I don't think you should use it in a logline; I think you should be able to convey the feeling of it through your writing.

    I say that, but it doesn't mean I can do it!

    I also don't think you need commas after "troublemaker" and "Margaret" in the intro. I know there are comma rules, but I'm too lazy to look them up right now.:) I'm going by how it would read out loud and you wouldn't pause there. And finally, except for a bad movie remake, most kiddies nowadays have no idea who Dennis the Menace is. An agent may get it, but not the average youngster.

    But after all that sniping, I want to say that except for those points, I think it's a great logline! I laughed and thought it was a cute premise.

    Except I just realized it was YA and not MG. Guess the D the M reference threw me.

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  6. I love the Dennis the Menace line, but it reads awkward when it's separated from the rest. How about beginning with something like: When sixteen-year-old Margaret, the Dennis the Menace of guardian angels, must return from the grave to stop her best friend from committing the seven deadly sins, . . ." Then give us the stakes.

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  7. I actually skipped the Dennis the Menace line on my first read, lol. I guess since it was separated from the first part of your logline my eyes just disregarded it. Anyway, I love the voice, the last line made me smirk. I would do without the Dennis the Menace reference. It seems a bit out of place. I can picture it in a query, not a logline. The story seems awesome though, I'm left intrigued and hoping to see it in Barnes and Noble one day. ;-)

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  8. Hello!

    As others have said, the last line is killer.

    You do NOT need the commas around Margaret ("trouble maker" describes your character vs. identifies her).

    I am not in love with the Dennis the Menace reference. It reads a bit dated (I think you'd be hard pressed to find a 16 year old who *really* knows who Dennis is).

    I think your first sentence could be a bit zippier. You could perhaps combine the first and second sentences, adding a word or two to describe Maragaret's celestial state.

    It's formulaic, but think in terms of this: It’s about a (character) trying to (goal) while fighting for/against (conflict).

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  9. Agree wholeheartedly with Tina. Lose those extra commas. And I also don't care for Dennis ref.-- Dennis evokes a little blonde-haired kid, not teenager. Good luck!

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