Monday, October 17, 2011

Logline #33

Title:  Maria’s Beads
Genre:  Middle Grade

Maria is given magical spirit beads just before she learns that her best friend, Diane, has a potentially fatal disease.  They enable the quiet & studious Maria to confront Diane’s parents who oppose medical intervention. Maria marshals her family and her school friends to save her friend, a quest that develops her inner strength and determines her heart path in life.

3 comments:

  1. This just needs a little cutting.

    Maria's spirit beads give her the courage to stand up to her best friend's parents when they refuse to get her the medical help she needs.

    Are the beads magical? Is this contemporary or fantasy? We need to know that too. Good luck!

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  2. In my opinion...you want to spice it up--"hook" em, literally!
    -Change the passive language to active language. Instead of "Maria is given", something like "Maria obtains" or "Maria discovers". In a sense, she is discovering them, right? You could link that nicely with "discovering" inner strength and her life's heart path.
    -speaking of assertive language, "With the power they contain/With the strength they unlock, the quiet and studious Maria confronts Diane's parents, who oppose medical intervention." Comma after 'parents'. Even if orally there is no pause, it is grammatically necessary.
    -I really like the last sentence. Maybe trim the excess info though, smth like "Maria rallies help to save her friend's [noun], a quest that develops..."
    --This sounds like a wonderful, affirmative tale

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  3. This sounds like a beautiful story!

    Are the beads magical? Do they act as part of the conflict at all?

    Maybe consider combining some of the info into one sentence to start: "Just after the quiet and studious Maria discovers magical spirit beads, she learns her best friend, Diane, has a potentially fatal disease and her parents are opposed to medical intervention." then go from there. Make sure to make the conflict and goal/consequences really clear, though. They gets a little lost in this logline for me.

    Hope this helps. Good luck! :)

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