This Is How I Do It

I was thinking about how to make our alcoholic cop haunted by an unsolved case into something original. I started by thinking of all the cliched, jump right to the front of your mind, seen a million times before ideas: a murder case, rape, serial killer, gruesome bloody scene, a kidnapping or child murder, a high profile case, a ticking clock and a case that went cold after 24hrs. And then I flipped them on their heads, and because I saw the 'baby murderer' as the most emotive and not uncommon, I went to the other end of the age spectrum: an old man. Not high profile, so a credit card scam. And now I'm thinking this cop was raised by his grandma (what happened to his parents, dead or in jail?; is that why he became a cop, to get justice or to distance himself from criminal relatives?), and she's in an old folks' home because she has Alzheimer's, but he feels guilty as hell about it, although this case -- an elderly person getting taking advantage of -- is exactly why he's put her there. The case keeps him up at night because it could have been her getting scammed, because that guy (and, really, he was kind of an asshole) was someone's pop, and he'd had to move back in with his grown daughter because he lost the house.

Okay, this is all backstory, but at least now our alcoholic cop is a character and not cardboard. Now we just take something we've learned about him -- grandma in an old folks' home -- and screw with it. There's a bomb at the old folks' home. Someone's putting the sick and elderly out of their misery and he can't afford to move grandma so he has to figure out who it is before there's a knock on her door. Already that's kind of interesting. Maybe grandma is the one who brings it to him, but she's hardly a reliable source, is she? Something is going to have to convince our guy that someone really is offing the old folks. Maybe the real culprit strikes and it looks like the cop did it, so not only does he have to save grandma, he also has to save himself. That's a big coincidence, but I definitely haven't heard that story.

An alcoholic cop raised by his grandma has to stop the angel of mercy operating at the old folks' home where she lives. But grandma's the only witness, and her Alzheimer's makes him doubt the killer's existence until he's almost too late to save her.

So now apparently the killer comes after grandma and he only just saves her (the timing is a coincidence again, but I'll allow it for now), and we have high personal stakes: the killer came after grandma once for blabbing; he has to come back to finish her now that her cop grandson knows she was telling the truth. Of course, the nurses won't believe him -- a woman with Alzheimer's and an alcoholic, very reliable -- so no keeping an eye out for grandma when he's not there, and he has a job with killer hours which means he can't bring her to live with him, so she's a sitting duck in the hospital until he can solve the case. Plus the guilt that he didn't listen to her the first time? That's gonna hurt. The final logline would look something like this:

When an alcoholic cop's grandma begs him to stop the angel of mercy operating at her old folks' home, he worries her Alzheimer's is getting worse; after he's almost too late to save her, he must catch the killer before he returns to finish the job.

So that's how I come up with a logline when I don't already have a story; as you can see, it's a much more random process than doing the same for a story you know. But it still has all the elements of a good logline (a protagonist, an objective, an opponent). (Oh God, the acronym would be POO, come on.) It's a little wordy, but I have a logline I can edit, with a core focus to direct the editing, so it's okay. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good; this month is all about quantity over quality.

And don't forget, today's the last day (but not really) to sign up on the 30 Pitches in 30 Days post. Tomorrow it begins! The suspense is killing me.