A jaded country star visits his childhood hometown and discovers his soulmate. Suffering a deadly heart defect, will death steal her, and his chance at love? ~26 words

I know it doesn't tell you much. Maybe I need to work on it. 🙂 Great post, Kate!

Thank you. I will work on it.

Alice, my answer is MAYBE. What are the ghosts? What's in her past? What kind of revenge? The difference here will be in the details. My third book logline would look very similar to this: A woman starts a new life and five years later is confronted by the ghosts of her past out for revenge. (ghosts in my case being metaphorical, not real ghosts).

For mine, I can change the details: A woman escapes her past to seek out her biological mother, only to discover that someone will stop at nothing to keep them apart. To be honest, it's still not "high concept" as the uniqueness to this book lies in the twist ending (always tricky to pitch and market!).

So maybe your premise needs refining (to be more unique) OR maybe the premise is fine and the logline doesn't call out enough finer details to really shout: HEY THIS IS DIFFERENT. If it's the former, don't panic. Many times, the leap from been there, done that to HEY YOU READ THIS is only a detail or two away. Good luck!

High concept sort of means the opposite of artsy! It means you can SEE the entire premise in one shot. If it would be a great movie, it's probably high concept. Most people think this means fast action and car chases. You're right, larger than life. For mystery/thriller writers, it comes naturally, although sometimes the struggle is with the "unique" part. I'll throw out twenty premises before I find one that I feel hasn't been done to death.

I think your idea is completely high concept and also very timely. Good luck with it!

Oh wonderful Amy!!! So happy it helped! xo

I think that's perfect Jenny! For the high concept punch, I thought of: A woman helps her terminally ill husband commit suicide and is arrested for murder. But that glosses over some of the emotional edge a bit, eh? 😀

Even if you're great with other people's, you suck at your own log lines.
It's humbling. Thanks for your help, guys!