3 Essentials of Logline

3 Essentials of Logline

Being able to write a good logline is one of the essential skills a screenwriter must develop to be successful. So let’s start by looking at what a logline is and what it is not.

A logline is a simple short summary of your screenplay, not more than one to three short sentences, describing your film in the most compelling way. It is typically about 35 to 55 words long and its main aim is to get someone to read your screenplay.

It is not a tagline, which is the catchy phrase you see on the movie poster. A tagline on a poster complements the picture of the poster, so it doesn’t tell the story like a logline does, it is more of a comment about the story. The tagline has the picture on the movie poster to pitch the move; your logline must do it in words alone.

A common mistake in writing loglines is to tell too much detail or to not tell enough. Your logling should say just enough about your screenplay to captivate the person reading it or hearing it so much so that they feel they must read your script. Your screenplay’s logline should reveal the basics of your story without telling everything.

Here are three tips to check your logline to see if it needs a make-over.

1. State the conflict and who it’s between.

Screenplays are boring when there is not enough conflict. It’s the same with the logline. You may have a great script but your logline will bore to tears if it does not clearly bring out the conflict, the drama in your story.

There can be no drama without conflict and the conflict happens between two parties—a hero and villain. We should have a sense of who your hero is and who the villain is. What are they fighting for that is in opposition to each other?

Adding a good adjective to describe each of your main characters will add color and make your logline more compelling.

2. Highlight the biggest obstacle(s) to achieving the hero’s objective.

What obstacles does the hero have to face to triumph? The greater the obstacles the more intriguing a producer will find your screenplay to be.

This, of course, should tie into the conflict between the two main characters.

3. Make sure you have a hook in the logline.

Your logline should also have a hook in it, which is that thing that gives the plot a unique twist or makes the idea unique. The uniqueness of your screenplay needs to come through in your logline.

Here are a couple of sample loglines of famous movies using these tips. I’ve taken summaries of them from IMDB.com and modified them a bit.

Alien: When the crew of spacecraft Nostromo investigates a strange signal from a nearby planet, they discover it was intended as a warning and not an SOS. By then it’s too late—they have awakened a hive colony of horrific creatures and they are angry.

Legally Blonde: When a sorority queen Hawaiian Tropic girl is dumped by her blueblood boyfriend for being “too blonde,” she decides to follow him to law school to win him back. Once there, she learns she has more legal savvy than she ever imagined.

If you follow these three simple tips in your loglines, then you will dramatically improve your chances of getting your screenplay read by the right people.

How to Write Logline

In this article I’m going to show you, what is, in my opinion, the best method to use in order to write a strong logline.

But first things first. What is a logline?
A logline is a one sentence (two, tops) summary of your story.

Uses of a Logline

Why we write loglines? Why we need it?
A logline has two different important uses.

1) To sell your script. The most known use of a logline is to sell your script. It is the first thing you say when you’re pitching your story. So, it has to be really interesting and grab the attention immediately. It has to hook your audience as soon as they hear it.
2) To keep you on track. The second thing why you need a good, strong logline BEFORE you start writing your script, is to help you stay focused on the strong parts of your script, while you’re writing it. Every time, your writing strays away, you should reread your logline and remember to keep in your script only the things that make it strong. Sometimes, we like our writing so much, that we forget our goal. A strong logline will help you at these moments to come back to your goal.
If you create a good logline before you start writing your screenplay, you avoid losing too much time writing the wrong idea. A weak logline many times indicates also a weak script. Whereas, a strong logline can be your guide on which things are the most important in your story.

The Five Finger Method

The screenwriter Michael Lengsfield has come up with an easy way to remember how to prepare your pitch using the Five Finger method and I believe that this is the best method to use in order to build a strong logline.

Here’s the Five Finger Method:

Every logline should consist of these five elements.

·         The Genre of the film

·         The main protagonist

·         Her or his goal

·         The main obstacle to achieve the goal

·         And what’s important, what is so special with that particular story.

Example of a Logline Building

So, let’s start building an example of a logline from a famous movie and watch how we can use the above method:

It’s a comedy about a man who relives the same day over and over.
Ok, this alone is a great catch! If you have such a great premise, sometimes you may not need anything else. I mean it. It’s strong, and if you are the first who thought about this, perhaps you can sell it just by pitching the above phrase. However, for the sake of learning how to build a logline, let’s see the rest and build it correctly.

We have just covered the “What’s important?” part here and the “Genre” part, but we still need the rest.

Goal

Who is this man and what is his goal? I mean apart from the obvious, which is to stop reliving the same day and move to the next day. Does he have any other goal?

You must always try to think in terms of conflict. Make your protagonist’s life as difficult as you can!

So, what’s his goal? He’s trying to win the heart of a woman BUT -here’s the conflict- she keeps rejecting him.

Why she rejects him? And why is it so bad that she rejects him? Why doesn’t he move on?
Maybe she rejects him because he is superficial. So, we get back to the first question which is “Who is this man?”

Main Protagonist

Don’t use a name, it doesn’t help unless he’s an actual person.
Who cares if he’s a Michael or a John? This is not useful information. Instead, we need some characterization.

Here’s your chance to build even more conflict. Don’t make it easy for your character, neither for you. In other words, try to give your protagonist traits that will work against him, against his goal. We reaaaally want to build conflict.

Let’s see… What if he is some kind of celebrity? Not a real celebrity. Maybe someone who thinks he is more important than he actually is. For instance, he might be a newsman in a small tv channel or maybe a tv weatherman.
Let’s replace man with tv weatherman.
It’s a comedy about a TV weatherman who relives the same day over and over and he tries to win the heart of a woman but she keeps rejecting him because she can see through him.

Now, we need an adjective. Always add one or two adjectives!
Mostly something that will work “against” him.
He is selfish, egocentric, self-centered, he’s narcissistic.

Let’s add these as well.

It’s a comedy about a self-centered TV weatherman who relives the same day over and over and he tries to win the heart of a woman but she keeps rejecting him because she can see through him.

To sum up

·         We have genre  –>  it’s a comedy.

·         The protagonist   –>  is a self-centered TV weatherman

·         The goal   –>  is to win the heart of a woman

·         The obstacle   –>  is that she doesn’t want him because she can see through him, his flawed character

·         What’s important? What makes this story special and unique?  –>
He’s trapped in a loop reliving the same day over and over.

Let’s add this as well. The feeling that he’s trapped is also important.

It’s a comedy about a self-centered TV weatherman who gets trapped in a time loop reliving the same day over and over and he tries to win the heart of a woman but she keeps rejecting him because she can see through him.

There it is, we’ve got our logline. I’m sure you’ve all seen it coming, it’s the “Groundhog day”, of course. If you manage to build your logline with all this information, to make it interesting and create lots of conflict, then it would be a piece of cake (ok, I’m exaggerating here) to write your script.

How to Write an Effective One-Page Pitch

What is the best way for writers to format and write a one-page written pitch for their screenplays and literary projects?

You’ve read about loglines…

Read ScreenCraft’s The Simple Guide to Writing a Logline!

… treatments and outlines…

Read ScreenCraft’s Outlines, Treatments, and Scriptments, Oh My!

…and elevator pitches.

Read ScreenCraft’s How Writers Can Master the Elevator Pitch!

But one additional tool that writers need to learn how to develop for each of their projects is a simple one-page written pitch — also referred to in some Hollywood and publishing circles as a one-sheet.

Written pitches are a necessity. You can use them for email queries, and they can be beneficial for that second step after a Hollywood insider or publishing contact has expressed further interest in your initial logline and query. You always need to have one on hand as you market your stories.

Here we cover the basics of how to create the most concise and effective written pitch in simple fashion.

What Makes a Great Written Pitch?

Written pitches have to be short, sweet, to the point, easy to read, and uniform. This isn’t the document that you want to be overly creative, decorative, or busy with — it’s all about getting to the core of the concept, story, and characters.

Get Them Invested in the Story and Characters

The purpose of the written pitch is to showcase the best broad strokes of the story and each major character. And you get readers invested by portraying what conflict they are up against and how that conflict is going to affect them physically and emotionally.

Readers live vicariously through your characters, so you engage them within a written pitch by presenting the key elements of location, conflict, characters involved, and the stakes at hand.

Don’t Explain the Plot — Summarize the Story

There’s a major difference between explaining the plot and summarizing the story.

When you explain the plot, you’re going into details about the various plot points from A to Z and everything in between.

When you summarize the story, you’re introducing the core concept and how that concept rocks the world of the characters. You can also touch on tone, atmosphere, and themes present within the story as well.

In short, plot is boring to read within a written pitch. A story summary is the best way to connect with the reader without having to go into subplot, twists, turns, and all of the other elements of the plot. Save that for the read of the material.

Offer a Professional, Articulate, and Organized Presentation

It has to be easy to read, well-written, and straightforward.

A written pitch isn’t about you and your story as the writer. It’s all about the project you are trying to pitch. Thus, there should be no mention of your personal preferences, struggles, inspirations, or anything like that. You shouldn’t include anecdotes about where you came up with the idea or stories about its development.

The presentation should be simple, professional, and articulate in how you present your story.

What’s the Format?

The format needs to be uniform for every project you feature within a written pitch. It’s all about giving the reader everything they need to know in one single page.

TITLE

The title of your project.

AUTHOR NAME

The name of each contributing author.

LOGLINE

You’re not telling a story in a logline. You’re presenting the core concept, the main protagonist, the protagonist’s main objective, and the stakes at hand — all within 25-50 words (fewer the better). Refer to the logline link above for more on how to write effective loglines.

3-5 SHORT PARAGRAPHS OFFERING A CLEAR BEGINNING, MIDDLE, END

Remember, your goal is to keep all of this information on one single page, so three paragraphs are better than five. But if you keep them all short, there’s breathing room.

The best format to follow is a three-act structure — beginning, middle, and end. One paragraph for each. Each paragraph offers the broad strokes of your story and characters — the core elements of your script.

Again, you’re not explaining the plot. You’re summarizing the story.

For a perfect example, go to a bookstore and read the back of any paperback fiction novel (or inside jacket of any hardcover) — and then give away the ending in the last paragraph.

How Do You Share a Written Pitch?

Your written pitches should be ready and available in different forms.

PDF

The first thing that you should do is save the one-page pitch in PDF format. This allows you to attach it to any email correspondence and offers the reader a well-formatted document to refer to.

Word Document, Google Doc, etc. 

Whatever platform you are using to create the written pitch, it should be ready in editable-form to rewrite and tweak. It should also be available to copy and paste from as well.

Query Letter Form

Since the one-page written pitch can be used for query letters or second-level email correspondence, it’s a good idea to create a basic query letter form that you can cut and paste, and then make necessary changes to for each individual contact.