LOGLINE:
In contemporary London, 25 years old paranormal consultant Robyn Wise joins forces with the ancient spirit living inside her, to fight the Dark Cloud, a malevolent entity determined to absord Fairyland's power. If Robyn fails, all good magic will disappear from Earth and our world will be turned into a hopeless desert.
FIRST 250 WORDS:
“Do you think he will come, Miss Wise?”
“Of course he will, Mr Wilson, no worries.” I say, trying to hide my concern with little success; dissimulation has never been my best feature,after all. That's probably why my client doesn't seem at all reassured; he keeps twisting his fat fingers while his piggy eyes dart around the place.
He’s nervous and I'm terrified, which is perfectly normal when you consider that I'm here, at night, in the middle of nowhere ... with a werewolf. A very nasty werewolf.
To make things even worse, there's not a single cloud in the sky, it's oneof those clear winter nights that show up in London once or twice a year.
My usual luck. Of course there's a full moon tonight, so a few drops ofrain wouldn't hurt, in case things go wrong. But they won't, let's be optimistic for once shall we? After all, Mr Wilson is a werewolf determined to be cured, that's why we are here in the middle of nowhere,waiting for a shaman to perform a healing spell on him. Let's just hope he's punctual, please, I've never counted on English punctuality so much in my entire life. That's probably because my entire life depends on English punctuality, in this particular case: to work, the spell has to beperformed before the moon rises and my client transforms into a blood-thirsty monster. Thirsty for my blood, of course. In this particular case.
Showing posts with label loglines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loglines. Show all posts
Jan 1, 2012
Post #2
Title: Shield & Crocus
Genre: Fantasy
Logline:
Aging superhero First Sentinel finally has a chance to overthrow the oligarchs who have ruled his city for fifty years, but it means making a bargain with his oldest enemy, a gangster who has schemed her way to the top. His team takes the offer, plotting a mission to destroy the Rebirth Engine, a machine that wracks the city with magical storms. If the team cannot turn the oligarchs against one another, they will hunt his team down and crush their rebellion.
First 250:
Wonlar’s apartment was a carefully constructed ruse. Papers, schematics and yet more papers covered the floor, spotted with yard-high stacks of books, delicate arrangements of spare parts, and sealed bottles of reagents. Bookshelves filled the walls from floor to ceiling along three sides of the apartment, broken only by a closet, the hall to the bedrooms and the opening to the kitchen. Over the last twenty years, the apartment had settled into Wonlar’s image: scholarly, brilliant, and scattered.
That was the intent. His neighbors wouldn’t expect that Wonlar Gonyu Pacsa, absent-minded artificer and handyman could also be First Sentinel, leader of the Shields of Audec-Hal, the only major force standing against the rule of the oligarchs. If they thought he was barely organized enough to keep track of whose oven he had to fix by Monday and mumbled to himself incoherently, they wouldn’t ask questions about why he was up at all hours and never seemed to be around for parties.
Wonlar stood above a table, squinting to focus on the job at hand. He was approaching his seventy-first birthday, but he looked no older than any other Ikanollo. He had the same square jaw, the same high forehead, sun-yellow skin and dark brown hair. For other races, cadence and personality were most of what set Ikanollo apart, since each man looked like every other, each woman a perfect copy of one another in features and build.
Favoring his left leg, Wonlar stepped over a short pile of books on rare reagents.
--M.U.
Genre: Fantasy
Logline:
Aging superhero First Sentinel finally has a chance to overthrow the oligarchs who have ruled his city for fifty years, but it means making a bargain with his oldest enemy, a gangster who has schemed her way to the top. His team takes the offer, plotting a mission to destroy the Rebirth Engine, a machine that wracks the city with magical storms. If the team cannot turn the oligarchs against one another, they will hunt his team down and crush their rebellion.
First 250:
Wonlar’s apartment was a carefully constructed ruse. Papers, schematics and yet more papers covered the floor, spotted with yard-high stacks of books, delicate arrangements of spare parts, and sealed bottles of reagents. Bookshelves filled the walls from floor to ceiling along three sides of the apartment, broken only by a closet, the hall to the bedrooms and the opening to the kitchen. Over the last twenty years, the apartment had settled into Wonlar’s image: scholarly, brilliant, and scattered.
That was the intent. His neighbors wouldn’t expect that Wonlar Gonyu Pacsa, absent-minded artificer and handyman could also be First Sentinel, leader of the Shields of Audec-Hal, the only major force standing against the rule of the oligarchs. If they thought he was barely organized enough to keep track of whose oven he had to fix by Monday and mumbled to himself incoherently, they wouldn’t ask questions about why he was up at all hours and never seemed to be around for parties.
Wonlar stood above a table, squinting to focus on the job at hand. He was approaching his seventy-first birthday, but he looked no older than any other Ikanollo. He had the same square jaw, the same high forehead, sun-yellow skin and dark brown hair. For other races, cadence and personality were most of what set Ikanollo apart, since each man looked like every other, each woman a perfect copy of one another in features and build.
Favoring his left leg, Wonlar stepped over a short pile of books on rare reagents.
--M.U.
Post #3
TITLE: Spirit Weaver
GENRE: Fantasy
LOGLINE:
When the man she loves unexpectedly disappears, Lora abandons her high post in the army and sets off alone into enemy territory to search for him. This choice turns her king against her and inspires an oppressed people who become convinced she is destined to save them from tyranny. Captive to a prophecy she doesn’t believe, she must accept leadership or risk the life of the man she gambled everything to save.
First 250 words:
Lora thrust her ski poles into the knee-deep snow, raising a mittened hand to shade her face from the glare of the sun. She stared past the wolverine ruff of her parka hood, down the slopes to the evergreen forests rolling out like a legion of the king’s Honor Guard.
Now that she was here, the fear turned her gut into clenching coils—like a snake consuming itself. The snake twisted at the thought of what she might find in the valley below, twisting tighter at what she almost certainly would not find.
Yet she had to know what had become of Gaern. He was the only man—the only person, even—to have somehow found a way through her inner-most defenses.
She searched for the smoke-haze of Eloedir rising up through the crowns of the distant conifers, though she knew all signs of her village would be hidden beyond the valley’s bend. Her own frozen breath was the only sign of life now, drifting back past the unstrung shaft of her wooden bow protruding above her right shoulder. Over the other shoulder gleamed the mottled bronze hilt of a curved saber engraved with the swan of the king.
Lora adjusted her pack, stamping her feet in their bindings to warm her toes. She pushed forward down the slope, finally letting her eyes settle on the place below where five years ago her father and brother had been slain.
--M.A.
GENRE: Fantasy
LOGLINE:
When the man she loves unexpectedly disappears, Lora abandons her high post in the army and sets off alone into enemy territory to search for him. This choice turns her king against her and inspires an oppressed people who become convinced she is destined to save them from tyranny. Captive to a prophecy she doesn’t believe, she must accept leadership or risk the life of the man she gambled everything to save.
First 250 words:
Lora thrust her ski poles into the knee-deep snow, raising a mittened hand to shade her face from the glare of the sun. She stared past the wolverine ruff of her parka hood, down the slopes to the evergreen forests rolling out like a legion of the king’s Honor Guard.
Now that she was here, the fear turned her gut into clenching coils—like a snake consuming itself. The snake twisted at the thought of what she might find in the valley below, twisting tighter at what she almost certainly would not find.
Yet she had to know what had become of Gaern. He was the only man—the only person, even—to have somehow found a way through her inner-most defenses.
She searched for the smoke-haze of Eloedir rising up through the crowns of the distant conifers, though she knew all signs of her village would be hidden beyond the valley’s bend. Her own frozen breath was the only sign of life now, drifting back past the unstrung shaft of her wooden bow protruding above her right shoulder. Over the other shoulder gleamed the mottled bronze hilt of a curved saber engraved with the swan of the king.
Lora adjusted her pack, stamping her feet in their bindings to warm her toes. She pushed forward down the slope, finally letting her eyes settle on the place below where five years ago her father and brother had been slain.
--M.A.
Post #4
Logline:
Special Agent Alexandra MacPherson can't decide which is worse - a witness who dies or a suspect who won't stay dead.
First 250:
Sometimes it all comes down to the gun you choose. SIG Sauer P226 .40 S&W or Rossi .357 Magnum revolver with a six-inch barrel. I’d picked the SIG. I should have gone with the Rossi.
I sneaked a look at the battered clock on the wall of the loading dock. Doyle was only five minutes late. Not so long I worried he’d had second thoughts. I needed him to show soon, though, before my unease fermented into something harder to conceal.
The SIG was a cop’s gun. I knew if anything tipped off Doyle, it would be the gun.
“He’s late,” Mike said.
I shrugged. Played like I didn’t care, hadn’t noticed.
“You see the game last night?” Mike asked.
“What game?”
“The Sox.”
God help me. A Sox fan. I’d happily watched the Phils beat the Braves the night before, but Kate Campbell didn’t give a shit about the national past time. “No,” I said. “I don’t follow baseball.”
“They play the Yankees tomorrow.”
“Well, I do hate the Yankees.”
“Who doesn’t?” Mike dropped the remnant of his cigarette to the floor of the dock and crushed it under his shoe.
Kate Campbell was a vegetarian who sold lattes at an internet cafe and lived in a dump near Temple University. A fugitive from the United Kingdom for alleged involvement in a train derailment in North West England, she fancied herself a modern day Guy Fawkes.
I was ready to be done with Kate Campbell.
--T.K.
Special Agent Alexandra MacPherson can't decide which is worse - a witness who dies or a suspect who won't stay dead.
First 250:
Sometimes it all comes down to the gun you choose. SIG Sauer P226 .40 S&W or Rossi .357 Magnum revolver with a six-inch barrel. I’d picked the SIG. I should have gone with the Rossi.
I sneaked a look at the battered clock on the wall of the loading dock. Doyle was only five minutes late. Not so long I worried he’d had second thoughts. I needed him to show soon, though, before my unease fermented into something harder to conceal.
The SIG was a cop’s gun. I knew if anything tipped off Doyle, it would be the gun.
“He’s late,” Mike said.
I shrugged. Played like I didn’t care, hadn’t noticed.
“You see the game last night?” Mike asked.
“What game?”
“The Sox.”
God help me. A Sox fan. I’d happily watched the Phils beat the Braves the night before, but Kate Campbell didn’t give a shit about the national past time. “No,” I said. “I don’t follow baseball.”
“They play the Yankees tomorrow.”
“Well, I do hate the Yankees.”
“Who doesn’t?” Mike dropped the remnant of his cigarette to the floor of the dock and crushed it under his shoe.
Kate Campbell was a vegetarian who sold lattes at an internet cafe and lived in a dump near Temple University. A fugitive from the United Kingdom for alleged involvement in a train derailment in North West England, she fancied herself a modern day Guy Fawkes.
I was ready to be done with Kate Campbell.
--T.K.
Post #5
Logline: Border Crossings tells the story of three women from three different worlds whose lives intersect as they enter the world of organ transplant and egg donation.
First 250 Words:
Two years of opening hospital-room doors hadn’t eased the dread of seeing her tiny son lying vulnerable as a soft-bellied fish on the starched white sheets of the bed, wires and tubes surrounding him like the tentacles of a giant squid. Knowing that those mechanical tentacles monitored his fragile heart and fed him the medicine that kept him alive didn’t stifle the anxiety: How will Koji be today? Is it a good day or a bad day? Yuki counted silently to three and pushed the door open.
Koji’s crooked, five-year-old grin beamed out from his moon face, and she could tell right away it was a good day. Even better: the mechanical tentacles were stored neatly away. Her little fish was free. Yuki scooped him up into her arms, pressing his small, bony chest to her. She nuzzled into his neck, searching for his smell underneath the hospital antiseptic.
“You’re squishing me, Mama,” Koji said, squirming from her embrace.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I’m just so happy to see you.”
“Why?”
“I’m always happy to see you, silly.”
“Oh,” said Koji and he looked nervously at Asana, the nurse, who was fussing around the room, rolling up a piece of plastic tubing and stowing it in the cabinet.
Yuki stood up and bowed in greeting, silently chastising herself for not acknowledging the woman sooner.
Asana handed Yuki Koji’s chart and said, “From a heart standpoint, it was a good day.”
Yuki nodded vigorously, her excitement building as she looked at his numbers:
--J.F.
First 250 Words:
Two years of opening hospital-room doors hadn’t eased the dread of seeing her tiny son lying vulnerable as a soft-bellied fish on the starched white sheets of the bed, wires and tubes surrounding him like the tentacles of a giant squid. Knowing that those mechanical tentacles monitored his fragile heart and fed him the medicine that kept him alive didn’t stifle the anxiety: How will Koji be today? Is it a good day or a bad day? Yuki counted silently to three and pushed the door open.
Koji’s crooked, five-year-old grin beamed out from his moon face, and she could tell right away it was a good day. Even better: the mechanical tentacles were stored neatly away. Her little fish was free. Yuki scooped him up into her arms, pressing his small, bony chest to her. She nuzzled into his neck, searching for his smell underneath the hospital antiseptic.
“You’re squishing me, Mama,” Koji said, squirming from her embrace.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I’m just so happy to see you.”
“Why?”
“I’m always happy to see you, silly.”
“Oh,” said Koji and he looked nervously at Asana, the nurse, who was fussing around the room, rolling up a piece of plastic tubing and stowing it in the cabinet.
Yuki stood up and bowed in greeting, silently chastising herself for not acknowledging the woman sooner.
Asana handed Yuki Koji’s chart and said, “From a heart standpoint, it was a good day.”
Yuki nodded vigorously, her excitement building as she looked at his numbers:
--J.F.
Dec 29, 2011
Bright beginnings
Next week, stop by on Monday to critique a few loglines and first 250 words of selected adult entries that didn't make it into the Baker's Dozen auction hosted at Miss Snark's First Victim. Not many have sent me entries yet, but I know those that do appreciate whatever feedback you share. And you're welcome to send your logline/first 250 even if you've never heard of Authoress. The more, the merrier!
On Friday, I talk with the lovely Rebecca Hamilton, whose novel, The Forever Girl, debuts next month as a print and e-book through her new imprint, Immortal Ink Publishing. Rebecca is also the acquisition editor for the company, which will start taking queries in May. She'll have a very cool giveaway you won't want to miss. (She's also just done a fantabulous blog makeover - definitely worth a click. I swear she's some kind of cyber-genius.)
In the meantime, I raise my nonalcoholic-apple-cranberry-spritzer to you! L'Chaim!
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