Friday, October 19, 2012

BD Round 2 Revised Logine #5

Original Post #20

TITLE: Stairs to the Past
GENRE: YA
 
Seventeen year old Jason goes into the attic of his home and finds himself in 1876. He falls for the maid who works for the 19th century family that built his house, but struggles to understand why and how he can time travel so that he can see her whenever he wants.  After several surprising revelations from his own history, he decides he was sent to save her from her employer’s treacherous son.

5 comments:

  1. I actually liked your original better. There's too much here. I think you need to streamline rather than try to explain more.

    In both versions its confusing that he needs to find out how to time travel or find out how to control his time travel, because it seems that he simply needs to go up in the attic. This may be part of the plot and it may make perfect sense in the book, but I don't think it needs to be part of the logline. You already have the conflict of him trying to save the maid.

    You don't need to say "19th century" family. We already get that from 1876.

    You don't need "after several surprising revelations from his own history" either. It's too confusing. Again, streamline.

    I actually think that ewoklove gave you great revision advice on Miss Snark's page: "When Jason accidentally winds up in 1876, he falls for the maid who works for the family that built his house, and must save her from her employer's murderous, philandering son."

    I really like the premise though, and I think the logline's almost there. It just needs tweaking. If you haven't read it already, you should definitely read Octavia Butler's Kindred.

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  2. I liked your original as well, especially the first line, but there were parts of this that were really strong. I like the part, 'he does this, but...this is his struggle.' If you do rewrite again, I would keep the explanation about the struggle he faces.

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  3. How about:

    Seventeen year old Jason goes into the attic of his 21st century home and finds himself in 1876. He falls for the maid who works for family [of the time], but to save her from an untimely death at the hands of her employer’s philandering son [he will need to learn how to time travel at will.]

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  4. I like the beginning of this version but liked some elements from the other. How about this:

    Seventeen-year-old Jason goes into his attic and finds himself in 1876. He falls for the maid but finds he cannot control how long he gets to spend in the past with her. When he accidently comes across some old records in the attic, he finds he must harness time travel to save his love from her employer's murderous son.

    Or something like that :)

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  5. Thank you all for your comments. How does this sound? "Seventeen-year-old Jason goes into his attic and finds himself in 1876. He falls for the maid that works in the house but cannot control when or for how long he can go to the past. When he discovers an old diary, he finds he must learn the secret to time-travel in order to save her from her employer’s murderous son."

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