Sunday, October 10, 2021

Tagline, Logline and Pitches

My favorite writing conference is next weekend. Other than living in fear that I will get covid and have to miss it, I'm working on my pitch for an agent, and tagline to tell other writers what its about.  

This has me looking back for resources to write what feels like impossibly short descriptions of the novel I'm working on right now, titled To Feel the Earth as Rough  (from a favorite poem)

Tagline 

The tagline’s job is to evoke emotion


Latest attempt:

Diving into the deep end on the far side of the moon ((Edit, added after reading some comments)


Previous attempts:

Jumping into the deep end on the dark side of the moon

Leaping off the dark side of the moon


What do you think: more concise (#2) or more accurate (#1, because the young protagonist definitely jumps off the deep end to get there!)

Word, Phrase, Sentence, Paragraph

It's harder the shorter it gets, so I'll move backward. 


Paragraph (basically a logline)

This is a story about what happens when …

a middle-aged mother who goes to the moon to get justice for her daughter’s death discovers the martial arts cult that she had blamed might have been the best thing that ever happened in her daughter’s life.

This is accurate but seems a little dry.


The word, phrase and sentences are much harder. I haven't settled on anything yet but here are my thoughts:


Sentence:

...is about forgiving despite anger, recognition of the value of something we don’t understand, explored through a martial arts style on the surface of the moon.


Phrase:

Acceptance of the value of things we don’t understand.
Acceptance that other people’s choices are probably right for them.
Recognition of the value of things we don’t understand. 


Word:

Forgiveness. Acceptance. Recognition.


I think Forgiveness is the most catchy; Acceptance is more accurate but too vague.

Love to hear your opinions (or suggestions!) in the comments.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

I quite like the long log line
"a middle-aged mother who goes to the moon to get justice for her daughter’s death discovers the martial arts cult that she had held responsible might have been the best thing that ever happened in her daughter’s life"
and "acceptance"
exactly because of their precision (I know you asked about about "emotion"...)

But I think those preferences can vary highly with culture and time.
I remember attempting to read the "Buddenbrooks" by Thomas Mann and the first period was on page 5 of the book (with quite a small font to begin with). This is definitely beyond a precise explanatory tagline !! - at least in 2021.

When I read aloud famous books from my youth to my children, I am always surprised how old fashioned (and politically incorrect) they sound these days. And not catchy and such complex syntax and grammar - I mean is it old-fashioned to use the genitive?

Alison McBain said...

I love the title of your book! Sounds like an interesting read.

When it comes to loglines, it’s so hard to pack a whole book into one sentence. When writing my own, I’ve always favored shorter over extra info.

Leaping off the dark side of the moon
Jumping into the deep end on the dark side of the moon

“Leaping” has more of a flow than “Jumping” to me. Perhaps combine some of the elements of the two but shorten it?

“Leaping into the depths of the moon’s dark side.”

This is a story about what happens when …
a middle-aged mother who goes to the moon to get justice for her daughter’s death discovers the martial arts cult that she had held responsible might have been the best thing that ever happened in her daughter’s life

Again, maybe shortening it a bit would help with clarity?

“Seeking justice, a mother travels to the moon and discovers the best thing in her daughter’s life might have been the martial arts cult she held responsible for her daughter’s death.”

Although I’m not sure “cult” generally has a positive connotation. Club? Society?

Sentence: ...is about forgiving despite anger, recognition of the value of something we don’t understand, explored through a martial arts style on the surface of the moon.

It seems like the list of things in this sentence don’t have verb/noun agreement. Also, not sure what “a martial arts style” refers to in the context of your story? You can fudge a bit of the details (for example, using the more catchy “forgiving” rather than “accepting,” per your question). To add in your ideas mentioned for word choice, perhaps:

“...is about forgiving despite anger, recognizing value in choosing the unknown, and exploring martial arts on the surface of the moon.”

Although the last part about martial arts seems a bit out of place with the other two items on the list? Again, not sure what martial arts on the moon has to do with forgiveness and choosing the unknown, so it might seem confusing to someone who doesn't know your book.

All of this is just my opinion, of course, but hope it might be helpful - good luck with your pitch!

The Authentic David Wren said...

What a great Robert Frost poem!

I'd never thought about how hard it is craft the perfect pitch. But I do like boiling the book down to a single word, like "acceptance." It takes the basic plot you outlined and suddenly gives it depth.

Kara C said...

I’m so looking forward to seeing this in print. To answer your question, I really like the paragraph description. It is intriguing because of the words you choose.

Unknown said...

This is the really tough part about writing. Wearing my "moon science" hat, I probably need to mention that technically there isn't really a dark side of the moon, it's just a 14 day long night (there is however a Far Side, but that invokes cartoons...). That said, I like jumping into the deep end better (the protag is a diver, yes?) although the metaphor doesn't feel very moon-ish. And hey, make it "diving" into the deep end to get a little past the cliche aspects.

Jonesy said...

These are notoriously difficult, but I think you're on the right track.

"Diving into the deep end on the far side of the moon" does a nice job of conveying both the literary and spec-fic aspects of your story, imo.


My only suggestion: in your "sentence" section, the word "style" in reference to martial arts doesn't really resonate for me, even though it may be technically correct. It gives the cult less "heft" than I think you are going for, at least to me.

Jason said...

These are great, nice job! Taglines and loglines are so hard...

For the tagline, I liked "Leaping off the dark side of the moon" best. The thing I didn't like as much about the two "deep end" ones is that it felt like a mixed metaphor. "Deep end" doesn't feel like it ties into the moon at all, and so it didn't produce the same response. But "leaping off the dark side of the moon" definitely evokes an image in mind that triggered an emotion response.

The paragraph logline is great. I took a stab at tightening it up a tiny bit, see what you think!

This is a story about what happens when a middle-aged mother goes to the moon to get justice for her daughter’s death, and discovers the martial arts cult she blamed might have been the best thing that happened to her daughter.

TW said...

Dani, The book sounds intriguing! Here are my 2 cents:

This is a story about what happens when a middle-aged mother goes to the moon seeking justice for her daughter's death and finds that the martial arts cult she thought was responsible may, in fact, have been the best thing that ever happened to her daughter.

Eric Coe said...

Love the words as well. Nice balance of relationally oriented and internally oriented words. I'm very intrigued — can't wait to read it! Plus, I'm excited to know more about what a martial arts cult looks like in lunar gravity!