Log Line Help
This is NOT a Logline
A few months ago, we wrote an article detailing exactly how to sculpt a powerful logline for your movie. We emphasized brevity and the importance of including an active hero in the logline. The article focused on helping writers through the often-painstaking process of polishing a loose, nebulous idea into an effective logline that’s less than 30 words long.
Ultimately, we provided this definition of a logline: A logline is a one sentence description of your story, outlining key elements of hero, antagonist, conflict and irony.
But recently, we’ve realized that our first article needs a prequel. We jumped into discussing what a logline is, but a better starting point, perhaps, would be to discuss what a logline is not. That’s exactly what we’ll get into here.
A tagline is NOT a logline.
A tagline is the one liner you might find on a movie poster or another piece of advertising. It’s meant to be coupled with a visceral image. It can be short and enigmatic, because it’s only meant to get people in the theater.
Here’s are a few examples of taglines…
Paul Blart: Mall Cop – Safety never takes a holiday.
The Tooth Fairy – You can’t handle the tooth.
The Bourne Identity – Matt Damon is Jason Bourne.
The Social Network – You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.
Information is deliberately left out of these taglines, because they’re trying to intrigue you. They’re trying to coerce you into the theater. They don’t need to sell you on the story, because they’ve got a big photo of Matt Damon walking through a blaze of fire right above the tagline. Together the image and the tagline are the one two punch.
But loglines aren’t meant to get people in the theater. They’re meant to get important industry people to read your script. And people don’t want to read a script unless they think you can entertain them for the duration.
Loglines need to present a story, not an idea or a concept, and that’s the main point to take away from this. “You can’t handle the tooth,” presents a concept. “Tough Guy playing the Tooth Fairy.” It makes you chuckle, or gag, or whatever. But it won’t make you want to read the script, because it only provides the tip of the ice berg, and it doesn’t have any of the elements (hero, conflict, antagonist, irony) that we listed in our definition above.
A synopsis is NOT a logline.
One of the most important aspects of a strong logline is that it is short. One sentence. Two, maximum. It has to be short, sweet and to the point, and it has to be well-written enough to entice someone to read your script.
Being forced to write so sparsely can be scary, and it can be tempting to add more and more details to your logline, but resist the urge! Screenwriting is like poetry. It’s all about the economy of words, and while that can feel restrictive at first, in reality, it’s one of the most freeing, wonderful things about writing movies.
And logline writing is a great place to hone your concise writing skills. Do you think your logline might be a little bit too long? Here are some great ways to cut it down.
- Remove secondary characters. The only characters you need in your logline are the hero and the antagonist. If it’s a romance, maybe you need the hero, antagonist and love interest, but you’ll rarely need more than that.
- Remove b stories. No matter how rich the world is you’ve created, for the purpose of the logline, b stories are confusing and unnecessary.
- Remove set up. Don’t describe anything that happens in pages 1-10 of your story in the logline. Instead, communicate this information in your character description. ‘A broken hearted shlub’ communicates that your hero just got his heart broken without having to describe the exact circumstances that led to the heartbreak.
A query letter is not a logline.
A query letter is a letter that you send to producers, agents and managers to try to convince them to read your script. There are lots of opinions on what exactly goes into a query letter, but it typically goes something like this…
About the Writer --> About the project --> PDF or hard copy? --> Done.
You should absolutely include your logline in a query letter (in fact, that’ll probably be the place you use it most), but when someone asks for a logline, they don’t mean a full on letter.
This may seem like common sense, but there’s a time and a place for everything. If someone on twitter asks you for a logline, it’s tweetable, and you don’t need to encase it in a query letter.
But if someone asks you for a query letter, generally it’s a good idea to send a bit more information than you’d include if they just asked for a logline.
A list of loosely strung together words and phrases is not a log line.
Here’s an example of what I mean. I’ll use The Bourne Identity once more…
A spy. A girl. A corrupt division of the CIA. The quest for truth. The will to survive.
Some people might argue that pitches like this fall under the umbrella of taglines, but I disagree. Lines like these are very rarely used, even as tag lines, because they seem hacky. They seem manipulative, like you’re using the short sentences and phrases to build suspense into the pitch. In fact, I think they’re probably most commonly used for comedy these days, but then still, only on the poster, and never as the logline.
They do, however, have the same problems that taglines have. They’re too enigmatic. There’s not enough detail. And there’s no way a line like this is going to get a reader to request your script. Sure, it sounds kind of cool… But at the end of the day, your logline has to convince the reader that they’re not going to be wasting their time when they pick up your script. Instead of hinting at mystery or suspense with an odd string of buzzwords, hint at a beginning, middle and end, with the careful inclusion of a hero, his goal, and what stands in his way.
Plenty of people say that “Your first page is the most important.” Or “Your first ten pages have to kill.” But in truth, arguably the most important piece of writing you’ll do is on your logline. Without a good logline, it doesn’t matter how amazing your first page is, because no one will ever read it.
To read our first logline article, click HERE.
Ultimately, we provided this definition of a logline: A logline is a one sentence description of your story, outlining key elements of hero, antagonist, conflict and irony.
But recently, we’ve realized that our first article needs a prequel. We jumped into discussing what a logline is, but a better starting point, perhaps, would be to discuss what a logline is not. That’s exactly what we’ll get into here.
A tagline is NOT a logline.
A tagline is the one liner you might find on a movie poster or another piece of advertising. It’s meant to be coupled with a visceral image. It can be short and enigmatic, because it’s only meant to get people in the theater.
Here’s are a few examples of taglines…
Paul Blart: Mall Cop – Safety never takes a holiday.
The Tooth Fairy – You can’t handle the tooth.
The Bourne Identity – Matt Damon is Jason Bourne.
The Social Network – You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.
Information is deliberately left out of these taglines, because they’re trying to intrigue you. They’re trying to coerce you into the theater. They don’t need to sell you on the story, because they’ve got a big photo of Matt Damon walking through a blaze of fire right above the tagline. Together the image and the tagline are the one two punch.
But loglines aren’t meant to get people in the theater. They’re meant to get important industry people to read your script. And people don’t want to read a script unless they think you can entertain them for the duration.
Loglines need to present a story, not an idea or a concept, and that’s the main point to take away from this. “You can’t handle the tooth,” presents a concept. “Tough Guy playing the Tooth Fairy.” It makes you chuckle, or gag, or whatever. But it won’t make you want to read the script, because it only provides the tip of the ice berg, and it doesn’t have any of the elements (hero, conflict, antagonist, irony) that we listed in our definition above.
A synopsis is NOT a logline.
One of the most important aspects of a strong logline is that it is short. One sentence. Two, maximum. It has to be short, sweet and to the point, and it has to be well-written enough to entice someone to read your script.
Being forced to write so sparsely can be scary, and it can be tempting to add more and more details to your logline, but resist the urge! Screenwriting is like poetry. It’s all about the economy of words, and while that can feel restrictive at first, in reality, it’s one of the most freeing, wonderful things about writing movies.
And logline writing is a great place to hone your concise writing skills. Do you think your logline might be a little bit too long? Here are some great ways to cut it down.
- Remove secondary characters. The only characters you need in your logline are the hero and the antagonist. If it’s a romance, maybe you need the hero, antagonist and love interest, but you’ll rarely need more than that.
- Remove b stories. No matter how rich the world is you’ve created, for the purpose of the logline, b stories are confusing and unnecessary.
- Remove set up. Don’t describe anything that happens in pages 1-10 of your story in the logline. Instead, communicate this information in your character description. ‘A broken hearted shlub’ communicates that your hero just got his heart broken without having to describe the exact circumstances that led to the heartbreak.
A query letter is not a logline.
A query letter is a letter that you send to producers, agents and managers to try to convince them to read your script. There are lots of opinions on what exactly goes into a query letter, but it typically goes something like this…
About the Writer --> About the project --> PDF or hard copy? --> Done.
You should absolutely include your logline in a query letter (in fact, that’ll probably be the place you use it most), but when someone asks for a logline, they don’t mean a full on letter.
This may seem like common sense, but there’s a time and a place for everything. If someone on twitter asks you for a logline, it’s tweetable, and you don’t need to encase it in a query letter.
But if someone asks you for a query letter, generally it’s a good idea to send a bit more information than you’d include if they just asked for a logline.
A list of loosely strung together words and phrases is not a log line.
Here’s an example of what I mean. I’ll use The Bourne Identity once more…
A spy. A girl. A corrupt division of the CIA. The quest for truth. The will to survive.
Some people might argue that pitches like this fall under the umbrella of taglines, but I disagree. Lines like these are very rarely used, even as tag lines, because they seem hacky. They seem manipulative, like you’re using the short sentences and phrases to build suspense into the pitch. In fact, I think they’re probably most commonly used for comedy these days, but then still, only on the poster, and never as the logline.
They do, however, have the same problems that taglines have. They’re too enigmatic. There’s not enough detail. And there’s no way a line like this is going to get a reader to request your script. Sure, it sounds kind of cool… But at the end of the day, your logline has to convince the reader that they’re not going to be wasting their time when they pick up your script. Instead of hinting at mystery or suspense with an odd string of buzzwords, hint at a beginning, middle and end, with the careful inclusion of a hero, his goal, and what stands in his way.
Plenty of people say that “Your first page is the most important.” Or “Your first ten pages have to kill.” But in truth, arguably the most important piece of writing you’ll do is on your logline. Without a good logline, it doesn’t matter how amazing your first page is, because no one will ever read it.
To read our first logline article, click HERE.
Do you need help with your logline? At Script Quack, we offer full logline analysis for just $9.99. That's 1-2 pages of notes, just on your logline. Tweaking it, refining it and making it shine.
Check out our screenplay services page, or click 'buy now' below.
Check out our screenplay services page, or click 'buy now' below.