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I have polished my first debut novel as a senior at university, and I have sent about thirty to fifty query letters to mostly literary agents in New York, and some in my home state in Florida. I originally wrote this idea as a screenplay before I realized that Hollywood doesn't make original movies for films anymore. There are all based off successful novels. My book is speculative fiction, and if you read or heard of John Milton's Paradise Lost then you'll certainly know where I'm writing about. It is a sort of modern version that has always existed in my imagination before I knew John Milton existed.

This book is about a tramp, deadbeat father facing the death of his two children as he cons his way into the corridors of finance turning himself into a smooth-talking banker left for death after a series of unfortunate events leads to the Stock Market Crash of 1929. As he mistakenly enters Heaven on the brink of collapse, he finds that a devilish prodigy has kidnapped his daughter as he searches for her in this cosmic paradise. While confronting his son’s rebellion joining a band of renegade angels into terrorism in this resilient tale of faith, and fatherhood.

What comes to mind when you read this logline? And, what genre do you think it's in?

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  • Paranormal / Fiction / YA is what jumps to mind – user18397 Feb 27 '17 at 0:17
  • I vote to close this question as it is not about writing – the text in question has already been written – but about interpreting an existing literary work (which is off-topic on this site). – user5645 Feb 27 '17 at 10:00
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    @what: Focused critique is on-topic here. In this case, the question asks for critique of a logline, with a strict focus on "what genre does it convey", which appears completely on-topic. – SF. Feb 27 '17 at 14:04
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    I think the problem here is that this question is unlikely to be useful to anyone else; what do people think about editing to be more about "how do I identify my genre" using this project as an example? – Goodbye Stack Exchange Feb 27 '17 at 18:41
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    @NeilFein I think that makes a lot of sense. Pinning down a genre (for marketing purposes) can be tough sometimes. – Lauren-Clear-Monica-Ipsum Feb 27 '17 at 18:50
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Well, that's not a logline, that's a (somewhat confusing) description of the premise. No agent is going to take a second look.

A log line or logline is a brief (usually one-sentence) summary of a television program, film, or book that states the central conflict of the story, often providing both a synopsis of the story's plot, and an emotional "hook" to stimulate interest. (Wikipedia)

But all that aside. Paranormal-ish. Christian probably.

Also your comments indicate you don't really understand how the film industry works. I strongly suggest you start listening to podcasts by people like John August, and reading blogs like "The Bitter Script Reader" and "Go into the Story". Get yourself an education.

It's true that Hollywood takes on relatively few externally-sourced screenplays but the number is still in the hundreds per year. However the competition is so huge (50,000 scripts per year) your odds are very low. But they are made even lower by sending a query where you call that paragraph "a logline".

In the world of screenplays, just as in novel-writing, agents receive so many queries they use any excuse to reject. Newbie errors are a good choice because anyone who gets such fundamental things wrong probably hasn't written a good script.

They know this from experience. Of course, there is the faint possibility they might miss a good script. Chances are they won't.

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