REDO
A promiscuous and adventuresome divorcée finds herself falling deeply in love with aN self-centered, obnoxious, and altogether inappropriate man, and in attempting to remove herself from his unbelievably powerful and seductive spell, she ends up hooking up with a wallflower-like, shy, and reserved woman—and surprises herself to realize she’s a lesbian.
CLEAN
A divorcée finds herself falling in love with an inappropriate man, and in attempting to remove herself from his spell, she ends up hooking up with a lesbian.
As you can see, just removing all of the unnecessary description has made a huge difference to the logline in only one quick and easy step!
Here’s another example where too many adjectives are dragging down the logline unnecessarily:
ORIGINAL
Adina, a very young girl, and her kind and generous mother must find their way out of a mysterious town with a unique element that revolves around a warlock’s quirky sweetshop and a very deadly secret, which the town carefully guards—anyone who partakes of the candies can never leave.
REDO
Adina, a very young girl, and her kind and generous mother must find their way out of a mysterious town with a unique element that revolves around a warlock’s quirky sweetshop and a very deadly secret, WHERE which the town carefully guards–anyone who partakes of the candies can never leave.
CLEAN
A girl and her mother must find their way out of a town with a warlock’s sweetshop, where anyone who partakes of the candies can never leave.
The names are obviously the first thing to cut. The age-based words “very young” are unnecessary, because they don’t add anything and, as mentioned, can turn off a reader who is not interested in hearing about very young protagonists. The adjectives “kind” and “generous” are also superfluous: They are bland, and don’t add to the drama or stakes or action. The fact that the town is “mysterious” has nothing to do with the need to flee from it, so that too can be cut. “Quirky” is removed because we’ll find out about that when we read the original work, so it’s unnecessary for the logline. And lastly, “deadly” is confusing because the hook is that they can’t leave, not that they’ll be killed, so that was taken out as well.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, there are exceptions to every rule, and those exceptions actually tell you what to leave in. For example, if the adjective helps show how unique the story or concept is, then it’s worth keeping. So the words “warlock’s sweetshop” were left in intentionally because they are what make the story unique: This is not just any sweetshop, it’s one owned by a warlock.
Here’s another example of a good logline in which adjectives makes it stronger, from a property I brought to Johnny Depp’s company:
A woman’s idyllic homecoming is shattered when she becomes the target of a demonic coven determined to either make her a member or kill her.
Why leave in the words “idyllic” and “demonic”? Because in this particular situation, it emphasizes the extremity of the character arc. Instead of the woman going from simply a homecoming to a coven, the journey becomes more extreme when she goes from an “idyllic” homecoming to a “demonic” coven—and so the stakes are raised.
Another exception comes into play when the very description is what makes the story unique. For example, I have a project with Film Engine that’s somewhat in the vein of Die Hard. And while I love the property, I can’t sell a Die Hard-type project without sounding exactly like the other million action films being pitched on a daily basis. So how can I make this stand out in a crowded marketplace? As always, I need to focus on the element that makes it unique, which in this case turns out to be the character description. The protagonist is a biological warfare expert, the best in the world, in fact, but he’s also something else … superstitious beyond belief. The guy carries around juju beads, a Saint Christopher’s medal, and a multitude of other supposedly life-saving paraphernalia with him. So the logline absolutely had to convey this aspect of this unusual action hero. Those adjectives are what make him special, and therefore create a significant selling tool for the project. Here’s one of the later versions of the logline:
A highly superstitious, world-renowned biological warfare expert must save the president’s life armed only with smarts and a four-leaf clover.
Normally, the first thing cut would be “highly superstitious,” but because it is the crux of what makes this project different, I left it in and even emphasized it with the “four-leaf clover” reference. Now, at the very least, it doesn’t sound like Die Hard, and you can see how in this particular instance the descriptive words are absolutely necessary.
Keep in mind, however, that usually adjectives are some of the first words to get cut out of a logline. At ten dollars per word, if they aren’t helping you sell your story, you can’t afford to keep them in your sentence.
All right, so you’ve learned to cut proper names, ages and age indicators, and unnecessary descriptive adjectives. What is the next step in making the logline better? We’ll explore that answer after you try out a few sample loglines, applying all you have learned thus far.
Chapter 12 Sample Loglines
1.Thirty-two-year-old packrat and hoarder Marti meets 27-year-old clean-cut minimalist Stan and it’s true love at first sight, and a quick but lovely and poignant marriage ceremony, until the two opposites realize their individual lifestyles are completely and utterly incompatible and must find a safe middle ground before a nasty divorce is their only option.
2.Four 80-year-old crusty and worn-out cowboys find themselves on an unexpectedly special journey to rescue a kidnapped little 10-year-old girl named Amy before a corrupt and evil despot remorselessly kills her.
3.In the Deep South, tensions run high when Elias Castor, a nasty, rich plantation owner, is the first to enslave a kindly white man named Jared, whom he erroneously assumes made shocking and improper advances toward his pampered young daughter, Meribelle, and the rest of Castor’s black slaves rebel at Jared’s treatment and ultimately kill their master, burning his house to the ground.
4.Rufus, an affectionate and spunky old junkyard dog, dies, but in heaven he is given a unique second chance to come back down to Earth with the enormous task of trying to help a solemn and silent 11-year-old boy smile again after the sad death of his beloved mother.
5.A sudden deadly winter storm traps Caroline, a new young mother, and her sickly baby Clara in the mountains, and only a crotchety old miner named Dylan and his faithful mangy mutt, Dirt, can help the two of them survive the extremely grueling conditions and help them get safely back to town by Christmas.
Answers to Chapter 12 Samples
1.
ORIGINAL
Thirty-two-year-old packrat and hoarder Marti meets 27-year-old clean-cut minimalist Stan and it’s true love at first sight, and a quick but lovely and poignant marriage ceremony, until the two opposites realize their individual lifestyles are completely and utterly incompatible and must find a safe middle ground before a nasty divorce is their only option.
REDO
Thirty-two-year-old packrat and A hoarder Marti meets 27-year-old clean-cut A minimalist Stan and it’s true love at first sight, and a quick but lovely and poignant marriage ceremony, until theY two opposites realize their individual lifestyles are completely and utterly incompatible and must find a safe middle ground before a nasty divorce is their only option.
CLEAN
A hoarder meets a minimalist and it’s true love and a quick marriage ceremony, until they realize their lifestyles are incompatible and must find middle ground before divorce is their only option.
2.
ORIGINAL
Four 80-year-old crusty and worn-out cowboys find themselves on an unexpectedly special journey to rescue a kidnapped little 10-year-old girl named Amy before a corrupt and evil despot remorselessly kills her.
REDO
Four 80-year-old crusty and worn-out cowboys find themselves on an
unexpectedly special journey to MUST rescue a kidnapped little 10-year-old girl named Amy before a corrupt and evil despot remorselessly kills her.
CLEAN
Four crusty cowboys must rescue a kidnapped girl before a despot kills her.
3.
ORIGINAL
In the Deep South, tensions run high when Elias Castor, a nasty, rich plantation owner, is the first to enslave a kindly white man named Jared, whom he erroneously assumes made shocking and improper advances toward his pampered young daughter, Meribelle, and the rest of Castor’s black slaves rebel at Jared’s treatment and ultimately kill their master, burning his house to the ground.
REDO
In the Deep South, tensions run high when Elias Castor, a nasty, rich A plantation owner, is the first to enslaves a kindly white man named Jared, whom he erroneously assumes made shocking and improper advances toward his pampered young daughter, Meribelle, and the rest of Castor’s black slaves rebel at Jared’s THE WHITE MAN’S treatment and ultimately kill their master, burning his house to the ground.
CLEAN
A plantation owner enslaves a white man whom he erroneously assumes made advances toward his daughter, and the black slaves rebel at the white man’s treatment and ultimately kill their master.
4.
ORIGINAL
Rufus, an affectionate and spunky old junkyard dog, dies, but in heaven he is given a unique second chance to come back down to Earth with the enormous task of trying to help a solemn and silent 11-year-old boy smile again after the sad death of his beloved mother.
REDO
Rufus, an affectionate and spunky old A junkyard dog, dies, but in heaven he is given a unique second chance to come back down to Earth with the enormous task of trying to help a solemn and silent 11-year-old boy smile again after the sad death of his beloved mother.
CLEAN
A junkyard dog dies but is given a chance to come back to help a boy smile again after the death of his mother.
5.
ORIGINAL
A sudden deadly winter storm traps Caroline, a new young mother, and her sickly baby Clara in the mountains, and only a crotchety old miner named Dylan and his faithful mangy mutt, Dirt, can help the two of them survive the extremely grueling conditions and help them get safely back to town by Christmas.
REDO
A sudden deadly winter storm traps Caroline, a new young mother, and her sickly baby Clara in the mountains, and only a crotchety old miner named Dylan and his faithful mangy mutt, Dirt, can help the two of them survive the extremely grueling conditions and help them get safely back to town by Christmas.
CLEAN
A storm traps a mother and her baby in the mountains, and only a crotchety miner and his mutt can help them survive and get safely back to town by Christmas.
Chapter 13
Be Specific
MANY WRITERS, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO THINK THE logline is their back-cover blurb, end up using big general concepts in their pitch. For example, they write that their work is about “a woman on a journey toward love.” The problem with using big emotional lines like this is that they make your material sound like every other book in that same genre. That’s why the back-cover blurbs tend to all sound the same when browsing in a particular genre section at a bookstore. By sticking with the general, once again you are using words that don’t help sell your particular story. Specifics are what highlight the elements that make your work stand out and feel different and special.
In the previous example, let’s change elements of the logline to be much more specific, so the story is instead about “a woman giving her heart to a man who’s in prison.” Do you see how much more distinctive that sounds? A logline should always emphasize what is unique about your particular story—and the only way to do that is by being specific.
Here’s a great example of a logline that got better and more sellable, the more specific it became. This was my initial pass at creating a logline for the story, which I eventually set up at the Disney Channel:
ORIGINAL
A girl on the fringes of the social order at her high school fights those higher up on the societal ladder, who would keep her down.
What I didn’t like about this, even as a starting point, is that it reminded me too much of Mean Girls, and the reason it felt like that was because I was being too general about the girl’s journey and how she achieved it. I also had to remind myself that the goal is always to emphasize what is unique: What was it specifically about the story that felt new and fresh and had attracted me to it? During the process of rereading the novel, I realized that I loved a sub-character, a curmudgeonly history teacher who lectures on revolution but, more importantly, inspires the lead character’s journey. Suddenly, that unique aspect of the material beautifully became the focus of and force for the logline.
REDO
A girl uses the principles of revolution to change the social order at her high school and try to propel herself out of the dreaded “general population.”
Concentrating on the unusual idea of using the principles of revolution to overthrow the queen bee of the school was what gave this logline its best chance at selling the material. We still reworked it a few times afterward, to raise the stakes and enhance some vocabulary, but this is a great example of how focusing on specifics while creating a logline can help emphasize the elements that have the most marketability in a story. Additionally, it helped me set up the project for adaptation, which I am absolutely sure would not have happened with the earlier iteration.
The general ideas of “finding true love,” “saving the world,” and “coming of age” work only to give a sense of where on the bookshelf certain material should be placed in a bookstore: in the romance, drama, or young adult section. But for our purposes, they are essentially useless, because they act in complete opposition to finding what is special about a story. Those conventional concepts are what I call “deal-killers,” because they make the plot sound like many others already out there. If I took a poll of people on the street, most would say they’ve read or seen literally hundreds of stories in the three aforementioned arenas. So the only way to market your story is to push the idea of something new in those genres. It’s the same in any type of selling: The most recent, hottest flavor of the month is always something touted as a thing you’ve never seen before. Selling a story is no different, and the only way to make it fresh is to zoom in on the specifics of the tale. Here’s another example:
ORIGINAL
A boy travels the globe, changing many lives along the way.
I think I could name quite a few projects that fit into this mold of “person on an emotional journey,” so this supposed logline needs a major wake-up call. I grilled the writer about what specifics he could tell me about what happened on the path, how precisely lives were changed. I also asked why this particular boy needed this adventure and why this trip was important to take right now. Here are the surprising answers in the redone logline:
REDO
A cancer-riddled boy spends his last days travelling the globe with Kickstarter funds, giving destitute families a new beginning.
Quite different, right? And infinitely more compelling because now the story sounds intriguing and I know what’s specifically at stake, since death from cancer (indicated by “cancer-riddled” and “his last days”) is involved. Now I care about what happens to this boy and I care about the journey he is on, which I did not when it was about amorphous travel and helping faceless folks for no particular reason.
In my industry, the one thing I always ask myself before sharing a logline is whether or not that sentence makes the piece sound fresh and different, because that’s the only way I’m going to be able to set it up. So I’m always taken aback when writers cling to their idea of teasing the reader, of not giving away their surprise by sharing specifics. To my mind, the real surprise is that they are hiding their greatest selling tool: the elements that make their particular story unlike everyone else’
s in the marketplace.
Being specific also helps with trends. For example, from time to time I’ll hear that a studio is looking for Christmas fare. That’s great knowledge to have but, unfortunately, there’s a great deal of Christmas material in the marketplace, so this is a yearly trend in which it’s very hard to stand out. Most every holiday tale has Santa or elves or reindeer or the like. In these cases, therefore, more than ever, being specific so the story feels new is incredibly important, or that project will just end up in the huge pile of holiday properties brought in to the studio because of their request.
One time, I brought Universal a new Santa Claus tale, but I knew I couldn’t sell it like that or I’d just hear that they had too many new Santa stories coming in. Instead, I gave them this logline:
A husband and wife are near divorce and, since the couple is Mr. and Mrs. Claus, it’s up to the elves to get them together by Dec 25th or there’ll be no Christmas.
I knew the studio would get hundreds of submissions about Santa and Christmas and elves, so instead I put the emphasis on the more personal story of a couple near divorce. To me, that felt like a fresh approach. How many Christmas tales include divorce? Probably not that many. But I also changed the focus, because human relationships are what will bring in the audience: These relationships are universally relatable. Additionally, I put what was at stake first and then revealed that the couple was Mr. and Mrs. Claus to surprise the reader (the executive) and make the story more intriguing. This very specific logline essentially helped me let the exec know that (1) this Christmas material was different and (2) that it would appeal to a wide audience—two terrific selling tools.
Here are a few instances of too-general loglines and then their more specific first rough draft revisions. Nothing here is final, but these examples will further demonstrate the power of the specific in loglines.
Sell Your Story in Single Sentence Page 7
