Script Writing: Week 3

These videos are about writing a feature film script. Although the principles apply, remember you are writing a script for a 10 minute audio podcast.

How to Craft an Effective Logline

A logline is a one-sentence description of your story concept.

The purpose of a logline is to present the essence of your screenplay in a clear, entertaining way that hooks the listener and makes them want to hear more. When constructing a logline, it is helpful to keep the following points in mind:

1. The logline really should be only one sentence long. Many writers – some who find it hard to boil their ideas down into a single line and others who perhaps think that the one sentence notion is just a loose guideline -- stretch them to two, three, and sometimes even more lines. The problem is that a multi-sentence logline is not a logline; it is a synopsis. While the point of a synopsis is to convey the structure and key elements of a story, a logline is simply meant to communicate the overall premise of your piece, so don't weigh it down with lots of plot and/or character details.

Here is an example of a poorly crafted logline for “Back to the Future”: A young man, to save his skin, hides in the past thanks to the invention of a crazy scientist. He meets his future parents and accidently distracts his mother from noticing and falling in love with his father. So, he is forced to bring them together or he will cease to exist.

Here is a much better example: A young man is transported to the past where he must reunite his parents before he and his future are no more.

2. The wording of your logline should be simple, direct, and to the point -- whenever possible, avoid elaborate sentence structure and flowery language.

Here is an example of an excessively worded logline for “Jaws”: When a giant great white shark begins attacking and killing swimmers in the waters off of a small New England summer resort community just before the all-important Fourth of July weekend, the town's police chief joins forces with a scientist and a grizzled old fisherman with a hatred of sharks and the trio set sail in a rickety old boat to hunt and kill the monster.

Here is a simpler, more effective alternative: A cop, a scientist, and a fisherman attempt to kill the giant great white shark that has been attacking bathers in the waters off of a small summer resort town.

3. Your logline needs to clearly express your specific concept, so don't be too generic ("A giant shark kills people in Massachusetts") or not clear ("When the town fathers of Amity put commerce ahead of safety, toothy retribution soon arrives in the form of a pair of prehistoric jaws").

4. A logline should describe your premise, not the formula behind the premise, so for “Air Force One” you should write something like: The President of the United States fights back against the terrorists who hijack his plane and threaten his family rather than My script is a cross between The West Wing and Die Hard.

5. A logline should describe the story, not the theme, so for “Gone with the Wind” you should write something like: Scarlet O'Hara fights to save her family's land and legacy in the midst of the Civil War rather than: As long as we stay connected to our roots, the human spirit can never be defeated."

6. The purpose of writing your logline isn’t to sell your story, it’s to sell the idea of your story. You want just enough information to get the wheels spinning in the mind of your listeners and get them ready for more. And once again, the logline is just as much for you as it is for your listeners . If you have a weak, unfocused log line before you even write your script, chances are your script isn’t going to turn out well. It’s the seed of your idea and it needs to be as focused as possible to allow your story to have the best possible starting point.

(Adapted from, https://kb.finaldraft.com/s/article/How-to-craft-an-effective-logline/)

Logline Worksheet

The first step is to select an experience from your past life, now or your future life worth living. This experience should clearly include at least one of these emotions; Anger, Anticipation, Distrust, Fear, Joy & Happiness, Love, Remorse, Sadness, Surprise or Trust.

Now create a “Logline”, a one or two sentence grabber that tells us everything about your story. Next step, is to create a title.

LOGLINE

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TITLE

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