How to Write a Great Logline….still working on it.

It’s been awhile since I last posted anything. Sometimes life interferes and writing has to take a back seat for a bit.

When I last left you I had constructed a horrible logline that went like this…

When an auditor with the military discovers something suspicious regarding one of their research teams, he becomes yet another unwillingly test subject for an experiment that sends him to the very depths of Hell itself. He has to free himself and the others, as their very presence opens up the chance that Hell could literally break lose.

Why is it awful? Well, lets look shall we?

1) The protagonist isn’t described. Sure we know he’s an auditor but that’s it. Is he suicidal? Manic depressive? Suffers from chronic fatigue? Obviously I can’t lay out his entire backstory in the logline, but I can dig up some sort of adjective to describe the character. Ideally, the adjective should be in contrast to what is going on in the rest of the logline. For instance, JAWS might have a logline like this:

After a series of grisly shark attacks, an aquaphobic sheriff struggles to protect his small beach community against the bloodthirsty monster, in spite of the greedy chamber of commerce.

I stole the logline from this site which has some more great information on logline construction. Head on over now to fill your head with yummy, delicious knowledge. And just for the record, the logline for Jaws I used up top didn’t include the word ‘aquaphobic’ in it. I added that in as an example for the point I was making. A sheriff fighting against a monster shark is one thing….a sheriff who must confront his fear of the ocean to fight a monster that hides within it is even better.

My protagonist is an emotionally withdrawn and repressed man. He experienced a tragedy in his life not that long ago and does not allow himself to feel anymore. While this has prevented the outpouring of grief he wants to avoid, it has also caused him to cut himself off from everyone around him. He thinks of all others as dead to him. I think a good word to describe him would be ‘detached‘.

2) The protagonist’s main goal is not stated. My logline does contain the tidbit that he must safe others and prevent Hell from breaking lose, but is that his main goal? Is it more simply to get back home? Is his main goal more internal such as reconnecting to those around him and his own pain?

Hell in my script is a very real place, a place which is Hell to it’s inhabitants simply because they are forced to act out the desires they had in life with no chance of rest or hope of ending. For instance, in the original Dante’s Divine Comedy those who acted on their lusts in life are condemned in Hell to be blown about by howling winds. Just has they give up control of their bodies to it’s natural urges, they no longer have any control over their bodies in Hell. Ironic punishment eh?

Ok, I’m getting a little off topic with that above paragraph, but I wanted to work out my protangonist’s goal, which has to do with letting go of the rage and sadness that he has held on to so long and which will consume him (literally) if he doesn’t. I’m thinking that his goal is leaning towards something like ‘forgiveness’ and/or ‘acceptance’. I don’t want to lose sight of the ‘prison break’ scenario of hell either though, so I’ll see if I can incorporate both parts.

It should be worth noting though that internal goals don’t seem to translate well into loglines, so I should focus on the external…letting the adjective describing the character hint at the internal struggle at work.

3) The antagonistic forces or stakes are missing. Since my protagonist’s goal isn’t stated, it’s not surprising that I forgot to include what is working against his goals, though I do think I included the stakes. Since ‘antagonistic’ is another way of saying contrary, I think this goal has to be contrary to the very nature of the protagonist. Since he is detached he must come up against something that forces him to ‘reattach’. And just from my point of view, I’m thinking that this goal should be contrary to his internal goal…that is to say this antagonistic goal is external.

4) The protagonist should be active. In my logline I stated that he must…

…free himself and the others.

Don’t think that is quite ‘active’ enough. The website I mentioned earlier (this one) uses ‘The Fugitive’ to show an example of a passive and active protagonist.

Passive:

A doctor falsely accused of murder flees a relentless federal agent who is in hot pursuit.

Active:

A doctor – falsely accused of murdering his wife – struggles on the lam as he desperately searches for the killer with a relentless federal agent hot on his trail.

I’m thinking that he must struggle to save a world of people he cares nothing about from unleashing Hell upon them. How’s that sound? Just to give some backstory on this guy, he wife and little daughter were killed in a plane crash due to the pilot being drunk. This event has made it impossible for him to see the good in pretty much everything. According to him, everyone is hurting everyone else in pursuit of their own pleasures. That clear anything up? No? Um…ok.

Let’s see if I can rearrange my logline a little and shorten it into something more readable….

After discovering a cover-up, a detached auditor becomes the unwilling test subject for an experiment that has him retrace Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hades, where he must struggle between saving the very world he loathes or letting all Hell break lose.

There’s lots not to like in this logline either. If he hates the world so much then I probably should use a better adjective then ‘detached’. What if I used the word which explains why he is so detached…’widowed’? Would it be better to break this into two sentences or can I leave it at just one?

Well, it is suggested after you have the basis of a logline, you need to go out and pitch it and get feedback on it. Well, that’s just what I’m going to do.

I’m posting it in the forums at Blake Snyder’s website here in hopes that a few people will comment on it in the next few days.

Well see if that happens and what things are exposed as needed more work.