[IMH]

So I’m working on a draft of a screenplay that I like, that should be saleable, but I don’t have a solid logline yet.

I’m in love with the title, the very Max Brand-ish Dead Man’s Reckoning. It gives a sense of the story’s Western roots, and lets you know right off there’s going to be a big to-do at the climax. The first two words also work on two levels, literal and metaphorical, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

Anyhow, I took a few cracks at a logline. Here’s the first draft: Dead Man’s Reckoning is a story in which:

A bounty hunter hired to transport a very wanted man gets caught up in another man’s quest for vengeance.

OK, that’s three characters in the logline, which already is a bit much (and there’s more to come), and overall it’s kind of bland. But the real conflict of the story is there, and I like the “very wanted man” bit, too. Still, who is this protagonist? 19 words, nice and concise.

Second draft:

World-weary bounty hunter Joel Marquette, hired to transport a wanted man, gets caught in the path of another man’s vengeance.

Now you’ve got a name for the protag that’s kind of interesting, I hope (a bounty hunter named Joel?), and you know more about hiim. The conflict also feels stronger — instead of getting caught up in another man’s vengeance, he’s caught in its path, like it’s an oncoming truck. 20 words (21 if you don’t let the hyphen join the first two), still under the 25 word “limit”.

Still, missing some stuff I’d like to work in. Ergo,

Third draft:

Hired to transport a wanted man, world-weary bounty hunter Joel Marquette gets caught between a man set on bloody vengeance and the beautiful young woman that man vowed to rescue — and kill.

I like this one a lot better, even though it’s too long (32 words) and more of a mess with four characters in play and a bit of awkward construction toward the end.

But this is the one I like best, even though it needs work and paring down. You’ve got the protagonist, the job that lands him in the situation, the main conflict, and the stakes he’s going to be fighting for.

There’s still some things that could be better. You don’t get the sense that the protagonist is pretty young, world-weary before his time, which is kind of important to the story and theme. And is the primary feature of the young woman really that she’s beautiful? But she is, and that’s a factor in the story.

What’s also interesting is what I’m leaving out — this is a vampire movie, but the vampires are actually peripheral to the real story. The “dead man” of the title can be read literally as the head vamp, but it could also be our protagonist, whose emotional life is deadened, or to the antagonist, who is spiritually dead. None of that needs to be in the logline except by implication, which some of it is. Although it might be nice to work the vamps in, I like it without.

For the nonce, I’m sticking with this one, at least till I have a draft of the script done that I’m willing to show people. After that, I’ll try to get the logline into better shape.