How to Write a Great LogLine

I’ve been thinking about this question a lot recently. I’ve only written 5 scripts so far in my fledgling career, and the logline has always seemed to be something left to the ad guys when they’re putting together the poster. I mean, I don’t have to come up with it now do I?

Yup. I do. And the clarity of purpose a logline brings to the writing process is absent from each of my scripts. I wish I could say I’m surprised.

So what makes a good logline? I’ve just picked up Save the Cat by Blake Snyder a little while ago and it dedicates the first chapter to the creation of your logline.

He even goes so far as to say not to write anything until you’ve polished your logline. Crazy eh?

It’s a great read, and as someone who foolishly never attempted to write a logline before, very helpful. Since I am still struggling with a logline for one of my scripts I thought it would be an interesting exercise for me to post a couple loglines from other movies and talk myself through them.

Feel free to listen in if you wish. Ready? Here we go!

The first logline comes from here and is for a script called “THE YELLOW ROSE AFFAIR”

LOG LINE: A serial killer is on the loose, the victims are exotic dancers, and a single yellow rose is uniquely placed on each victim’s body.

Not much to start with there is it. Who is the protagonist? A ’struggling to stay sober’ detective? A former exotic dancer who pulled her life together and now must save the life of her former friends? I don’t know who I should be cheering for from this logline. There also is no mention of the stakes involved. The the serial killer targeting the protagonist and the mystery must be solved before he/she can be killed? Are the killings forcing the city to shut down all exotic dance clubs and one owner must find the killer before he loses everything he’s spent his life building? The final bit of this logline mentions a yellow rose…and since that’s the title of this script I’m assuming it’s an important bit of information. But is this information that I need or even want to know? A serial killer targeting strippers is enough for me to be interested, but I’m a simple guy with simple tastes:)

Here’s my take on the logline for this script:

LOG LINE: When the bodies of exotic dancers start turning up all over the city, a young police officer must risk her family and her reputation to track down the serial killer who is attacking those she once worked with, and who has now set his sights on her.

Ok, that’s not exactly great either, but I guess it’s not bad for something cooked up in a couple minutes:) I’ve created a protagonist who is a police officer but was once a stripper herself which adds a bit of conflict into the story. Her former life is something she’s probably kept hidden from those on the force, her family, etc,. Plus I’ve added some stakes into it as well, with the serial killer now focusing in on the protagonist. She’s now has to track this guy down before she herself is killed.

On to the next logline! This one I got from here and is entitled ‘The Night Projectionist’.

LOG LINE: A night projectionist at a condemned movie theater takes his audience hostage on Halloween night, unleashing a battle between past ghosts and the revelation that he is a vampire facing his last night on earth.

Um….yah. Where to even start with this one? Why is a vampire working as a projectionist and why is this a revelation to him? Why take his audience hostage to begin with unless it was to feast on them all? I know that good log lines are suppose to make you want to read more, but I just wanted to read the script so I could make sense of it all. Probably not the same thing. Is the fact that the movie theatre is condemned important? How does taking the audience hostage lead to a battle between ghosts? Is there something that this projectionish/vampire must accomplish before Halloween is over? So many questions, so little time.

Here’s my take on it:

LOG LINE: A vampire who long ago turned his back on his bloodthirsty nature is finally found by an old enemy. Trapped in a condemned theatre on Halloween night with his immortal foe, dozens of hostages, and with cops surrounding the building, he must decide between escaping or staying to save the lives of the innocents behind held. And the sun will rise soon.

Not as good as an effort as my first one I think. I added a more concrete villain to the story and given him a goal (in this case, revenge) and gave the logline more of a deadline by mentioning the sun rising. I do hate that last sentence though, and wish I could incorporate it into the rest of the logline. I tried, but the sentence seemed so long and ‘run-on-ish’ that I felt I needed a new sentence to avoid sticking a fork in my eye in frustration. The protagonist is also given a conflict. Vampire who wants to be human, escape and live versus stay and fight for his friends. All very cliche so that needs a bit of work to make it new and exciting.

Definately will have to try picking apart my own logline in the next day or two and see if I can be as honest with it as I am with others. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, here is a checklist for Loglines from www.ehow.com. Definitely not the same as the 4 ingredients for a logline that Mr.Snyder suggests, but it might interest some of you.

Step 1 – Begin by logline by revealing the movie’s premise. What are the major complications in your story? What does your hero want and what is the major obstacle in his path? Write this is a sentence. For example: he wants to recover the family inheritance that was stolen from him by his brother.

Step 2 – Describe the action that your hero takes to overcome his obstacles. Again do this in a single sentence. He kidnaps his brother.

Step 3 – Describe the hero’s crisis and the dangerous complications that arise from his actions. Everyone is out to get him and he has no one he can trust.

Step 4 – Hint at the climax, the final showdown, and the hero’s transformation at the end of the movie. Don’t spell this out in detail. Make the reader want to read your script.

Step 5 – Identify the sizzle in your movie–sex, greed, humor, danger, thrills, satisfaction. Specify the genre. Is it a thriller, mystery, comedy or romance? Write all this in present tense and no more than three sentences. Most professional scriptwriters agree that, “If you can’t say it in three sentences, you don’t know what your script is about.” Think of the movie you’ve been writing the script for, and then breathe life and personality into those three sentences.

You can find another take on what makes a great logline here and here. There are hundreds of other sites out there which purport to teach you the secrets of logline writing….just Google ‘Writing movie loglines’ and I’m sure you’ll get an obscene amount of links.

Cheers!