Okay, it’s after pitch practice, and I have a new logline. Two, actually. One is “Hollywood High Concept” and goes like this:
So Spider Robinson and Kurt Vonnegut go to a bar and decide to write a story about aliens, and that’s Alien Blue.
I’m supposed to say that first. And then:
Anyway, after this ornery New Mexico bar owner is hornswaggled into hiding an alien he hates for 16 years, the alien is found, and the bar owner ends up risking his life, his friends’ lives, and even his bar to save the guy.
Which is just opening up a can of worms, which is (I guess) the point.
I’m always a little leery about those sorts of Hollywood loglines.
I kinda like the new “folksy” one — except you leave out (which you had in earlier ones) hidden from / found by *whom*. I think that’s an important distinction.
Eh, but if an agent isn’t familiar with Spider and Vonnegut, two giants of the field, I probably need to keep looking right then and there.
See, that’s what I meant about the can of worms. I can try to stick even more information into the sentence, or I can wait for the question. “Hidden from whom?”
“Oh, the alien’s been condemned for something he didn’t do. His world’s version of interstellar cops are trying to kill him and wipe out the knowledge he was ever there.”
“How are they going to do that?”
“They’re going to rape people’s minds to find out who else knows, kill the people, and keep moving. Except the bar owner has a plan.”
“What’s the plan?”
And so on. It’s a face-to-face meeting, not a cover letter, so I get to do that. –Also, I think saying “The alien is found by his interstellar executioners” isn’t nearly as interesting as doing it the other way, which I’m hoping I can somehow work into the cover letter.
I’m glad you asked, though, because I had to think it out, because Dave is never really satisfied with the answer “Because.”
Two gangly giants.