Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Logline Critique Round One #26

TITLE: Beyond Chains and Stars
GENRE: YA Sci Fi

When twins Juhan and Chosi are stolen from their planet of peaceful psychic by slavers, Juhan swears they’ll survive and return home. But as his slavery leads him into the intrigues of galactic politics, and Chosi’s takes her to the deadly gladiator arenas, the twins have to survive on their own. And each is forced to confront how much they are willing to change, and what price they are willing to pay, to return home.

13 comments:

  1. There are grammar errors and typos in here that make it difficult to tell what's really going on. Lots of throwaway words and phrases too that clutter this up and make it a lot longer than a logline should be, or that this one in particular even needs to be. Things like "swears they'll survive and return home" are sorta a given and are made obvious when you say anything about trying to survive or escape. Also "survive on their own." I'm not sure if that means they have to survive together without outside help or if they've been separated and must each survive alone. This needs a lot of housekeeping.

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  2. You need to tighten your grammar, and what is a planet of peaceful psychic?

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  3. I don't see the connection between the slavers and the new lives being appealing. Also, facing a decision is not really an obstacle. What do they ACTUALLY have to give up in order to return or not return home?

    Good luck!
    Holly

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  4. I like the line at the end but the rest didn't grab me. I think the wording and the description could be tightened.

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  5. I think I get what you're saying, but it is a bit jumbled with the grammar and extra words. When I toss out those and read between the lines, so to speak, I can see that this could be an interesting story. One twin going off to politics and the other to be a gladiator--and a girl no less--I'm interested in that! Just tighten it up a bit and you'll be fine.

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  6. I agree with Karen's comments. I also had a hard time with the phrase 'stolen from their planet of peaceful psychic.' I think you could cover that whole first sentence with the word 'kidnapped.'

    Fun concept!

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  7. In addition to trimming out the unnecessary info, I'd recommend replacing the vague last sentence with something more specific.

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  8. I really had a hard time following this one, and I think it's the spelling/grammar errors. It's a good concept, but this can be tightened to clearly convey the essence of their goal/conflict.

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  9. This one needs some work. I had to reread the peaceful psychic several times before figuring out psychic was just missing an 's' but by then, I'd lost interest.

    The premise has promise though and reminds me of a story I'm rereading to my kids.

    Good luck!

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  10. I'm afraid this left me more confused than intrigued. Karen said it best: once you tighten this, the strength of your premise will shine through. Love the idea of a female gladiator!

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  11. I, too, agree with the others... tighten it up and be more specific, especially at the end. I think I've read a query or something of yours on another blog, and it sounded very interesting... This current logline doesn't do it justice, but if you follow these suggestions, I think it could. Good luck!

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  12. My first question was, if they're psychic, why didn't they see this coming? No one on a planet of psychics noticed the slavers were coming?

    This log line sets up a situation for two different stories, Juhan's and Chosi's. How are the two stories connected? DO they try to find each other, or are they each simply trying to save themselves?
    t

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  13. I like the premise very much. At the same time, I'd hope to see a little more in the log line about how their stories are connected. Also, I agree with the others about "planet of peaceful psychic" and I had some trouble with the sentence fragments. Again, though, really interesting idea! I think it would have wide appeal.

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