Thursday, November 1, 2012

Last Call Logline #3

Previous Post #21

TITLE: WISHLOCK
GENRE: MG Fantasy 

When eleven-year-old Timothy handles an object concealing dark magic there are unwanted aftereffects: grey fur and a ferocious appetite for cheese. A manuscript housed in a library offers hope of reversing his new mouse-like qualities, but he will need to use all his smarts to retrieve it as the lock on the door is forged from unbreakable magic.

7 comments:

  1. I like this for the most part, but I did stumble in a couple of places. Adding commas and doing a little rewording, though, should fix that. Try something like:

    When eleven-year-old Timothy handles an object concealing dark magic, there are unwanted aftereffects: grey fur and a ferocious appetite for cheese. A manuscript housed in a library offers hope in reversing his new mouse-like qualities, but he will need to use all his smarts to retrieve it, as the lock on the [library?] door is forged from unbreakable magic.

    So just a couple of questions:
    1.) What door is it?
    2.) If it's the library door--as I'm assuming it is, here--why would he need to break the lock? If it's a library, shouldn't he be able to just get into it? I know you have a very limited number of words here, but that did confuse me a bit.

    Overall, this sounds like a really solid story. Good luck!

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  2. Yes, agreed with Julia - it's a little bit of a word salad in places. Julia's suggestions fix those problems nicely.

    Maybe to skip the library questions, you could just say "a mysterious manuscript offers hope." The fact that it's in a library isn't pivotal, and if you can't address it fully here, you don't lose anything by leaving it out.

    Hope that helps!

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  3. I think this is good! I agree with the above suggestions for making it read more clearly.
    I wonder if the stakes would be highlighted more strongly if the last bit were arranged something like this:
    If Timothy can't find a way through a door locked with unbreakable magic, and retrieve a secret manuscript containing the information he needs, he'll be stuck as a half-mouse forever.
    That's not quite right, and I'm not even sure if it would be an improvement. Just an idea. :) It sounds like a fun MG read, and I think your logline is very close.

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  4. I like where you are going with: "If Timothy can't find a way through a door locked with unbreakable magic, and retrieve a secret manuscript containing the information he needs, he'll be stuck as a half-mouse forever."

    It ratchets up the stakes. And I agree with Julia's suggestion too!

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  5. This sounds adorable! I agree with the above comments, and I really like Anita's rewording above. Definitely need some commas in there, and I'd consider swapping the colon for a semicolon, or none at all with some rewording suggested in the comments. Something about colons in loglines reads a bit clunky to me. I think you've almost got it, though!

    Great job and good luck!

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  6. This sounds like it could be a funny novel.

    There should be a comma after 'dark magic' in the first sentence. And the second sentence might read smoother if you say: A library whose lock is forged from unbreakable magic houses a manuscript that offers hope of reversing his new mouse-like qualities, but it'll take all of Timothy's smarts to figure out how to get in.

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  7. I was a bit confused as well - especially because I wasn't fully sure if he was stuck as a half-mouse - and which half - because that would make it extra hard to get to the library (or location) where the spell to get him 'un-moused' is...And, I wonder what he's doing with the 'object of concealed dark magic'...why he was alone when he handled it...because that certainly ups the challenge/conflict of him trying to break the spell. I think it sounds interesting and dark - a good combination for savvy MG-ers these day! Good luck!

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