Sell me your story with a tagline

[AlinaX]

Coming tomorrow... Summer Wine

An adult gameshow with adultery leads to a new romance.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

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that's the saddest thing I've seen.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

Not trying to sell you anything, but this is an interesting exercise.

Falling for Dad's Slut: Young man seeking love and meaning meets pervert not from this world.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

In all seriousness, I have a story planned entitled: The worst story ever.

The tag line will be: Don't read this story - you will fucking hate it.

I don't know about others, but coming upon such a tagline, I would follow the advice.

 

[Biggalute]

A story of love, death and Lady Godiva.

 

[Bramblethorn]

that's the saddest thing I've seen.

On THIS forum???

(In context it's sweet.)

 

[Bramblethorn]

One of the greatest movies ever.

There were a couple of "I wish they hadn't changed that part" moments for me in the adaptation, but overall a lot of fun, and Captain Shakespeare was a delight. Is "chewing the wardrobe" a thing?

 

[Bramblethorn]

I suck at taglines, but "A corporate team-building event goes dreadfully wrong" isn't too bad.

 

[MillieDynamite]

This is a TRUE story! (Even if it isn't.)

 

[MelissaBaby]

Note: A tagline is not a description of the story -- it's an ad.

I think that's generally true, except in the case of series, in which I think they serve more as bookmarks, to let ongoing readers keep track of which they have read.

I don't think I do very well with taglines. I have a hard time boiling my stories down to a simple description. But here are a few I thought worked well.

 

[theWollstonecraftWoman]

All the law allows and a bit more!

Nope, I haven't used it.

 

[nice90sguy]

I think that's generally true, except in the case of series, in which I think they serve more as bookmarks, to let ongoing readers keep track of which they have read.

I don't think I do very well with taglines. I have a hard time boiling my stories down to a simple description. But here are a few I thought worked well.

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The way I think of taglines is to imagine one of those deep, close-to-the-mic voices saying it at the movie theatre when you're waiting for the main feature. It really DOESN'T need to summarise the story -- it just has to pique your desire. And of course, it shouldn't mislead you as to the content.

So the first of your three descriptions is, to me, more like a quick one-line review, and not very good, but the second two totally nail it.

 

[onehitwanda]

There were a couple of "I wish they hadn't changed that part" moments for me in the adaptation, but overall a lot of fun, and Captain Shakespeare was a delight. Is "chewing the wardrobe" a thing?

Gaiman doesn't generally adapt well to the screen. There is so much humour that is just lost. I'm glad nobody's tried to adapt Anansi Boys; American Gods was bad enough.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Gaiman doesn't generally adapt well to the screen. There is so much humour that is just lost. I'm glad nobody's tried to adapt Anansi Boys; American Gods was bad enough.

Stardust was beautiful, despite the odd changes.

American Gods so nearly worked. It looked fantastic, Lovejoy was born to play Wednesday, and the casting and script for s1 were great. But they couldn't resist the slow, lingering cinematography. If they'd cut 10 minutes out of every ep of series 1, and about a third of every episode of s2 and 3, it might have earned a BAFTA and Emmy.

And Good Omens, which I worried about so much, is a work of staggering genius (assuming Gaiman pulls off s3 to deal with all the lingering threads left dangling in s2).

I've never been good at interpreting graphic novel pictures - Sandman is one of few I've bothered reading, mostly with the help of the Sandman companion which would say things like "They trip over a body in the snow on page 53" and I'd be like "Really? Seriously, that line's meant to be a body?" So I'm actually getting more detail out of the TV series than I did the books. Similarly, Neverwhere worked great as a book if you could picture all the locations and stations. For those who couldn't, I think the series was better.

 

[THBGato]

Yeah, BUT there's always Neverwhere (I know, I know, he wrote it for TV first, then wrote the novel afterwards).

Still love it. Tamsin Greig as a vampire (or whatever she's meant to be). Mmmmmmmmm.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Gaiman doesn't generally adapt well to the screen. There is so much humour that is just lost. I'm glad nobody's tried to adapt Anansi Boys; American Gods was bad enough.

It had its moments. I was impressed that they went there with Vulkan and the Jesuses, and Mr. Nancy's entrance was superb. But I lost interest after they did Orlando Jones dirty.

Loved Good Omens S1. S2 was interesting but I don't think I can form a complete opinion on it until I see S3.

 

[AchtungNight]

Gaiman’s Stardust was great IMO. Claire Danes, Robert deNiro, and Michelle Pfeiffer did a lot of good acting in that one.

 

[Vintage_DM]

The old saying goes ,,, first ya hava to get their attention. Sometimes, you do this with a well placed kick. Where your foot lands is up to you.