TITLE: TALENTED
GENRE: YA fiction
When you have the ability to control fire, it seems like your goals should be a little bigger than finding your parents and living happily ever after, but for Gail, they’re not; until the Community forces her to change her mind.
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14 comments:
Finding your parents and living happily ever after seem like pretty big goals to me. The happily ever after is a bit generic and doesn't have any tension. I'd be interested to hear what the community wants (specifically ) and how this could keep her from what she wants.
I agree with Bill. I'd like to see this more focused on Gail and the Community, and how they're keeping her from reaching her goals (if that's the case). It sounds like a really cool concept, I just want to know a little more about what's at stake.
I love the concept. Anytime someone can control an element, I'm interested!
But I agree with Bill. Finding your parents is a pretty big deal especially for a teen.
Maybe Gail's primary goal is finding her parents, but when the Community steps in with whatever they do, her goals shift, so now maybe her primary goal is staying alive, or something like that. It would be nice to know what her mind has been changed to by this Community.
We have a motivation, but the stakes are missing. Does the Community promise to help her find her parents if she works for them or are they holding her parents hostage so she will work for them? Without that bit, I don't think the logline works.
Maybe something along these lines:
Gail's ability to control fire can't help her find her parents, and the Community doesn't care about that. They want her to (...what?), and it just might give her the lead she needs to make her own happily ever after.
Thanks for the insight so far! I hadn't seen how many interpretations there could be for this. I'll think about ways to make it clearer.
I would read this, I think that you can add of bit of tension to this by either adding something about the reason the community makes her change her mind, or what would happen if she doesn't change her mind.
To me there's a disconnect between the ability to control fire and finding her parents. And frankly, finding her parents seems like a much bigger deal. I also don't understand what the community wants her to do, find her parents or use her fire? Either way, what does she stand to gain/lose?
I agree that we need more info about the Community. Right now they don't seem very threatening, which takes away from the stakes.
"The Community" - I like nice, generic sounding names for villain organizations, but I'd love to have had a hint about how they intended to change her mind to make me think "Wow, I really hate these guys and root for Gail."
This is an okay start (although it should not be one big sentence!), but we need a lot more information about what this Community wants her to do and why that will prevent her from getting her happily ever after.
Good luck!
Holly
It was good up until you mentioned "the Community" and it fell flat for me because I have no idea what you're using that term to mean. It could be just the community of people she lives with, or it could be a speculative element, but without knowing what it is, it's meaningless.
Thanks for the further comments. I still have to think about ways to make this more precise. The thing is, there are a lot of elements, and I chose the one I think is most understandable in so few words. Without these comments I wouldn't have seen the issues in my tactic, so thanks!
I'd start with a simpler, punchier sentence. "Gail can control fire but all she wants . . . " I'd also like to know a little about Gail (age? personality?) and the Community.
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