As a result, I decided to revamp my thinking on the project. I tried to think of this memoir as an imaginary story, no longer bogged down by the realities of true life. If that were what I had to work with, and she were the protagonist in a fictional piece, what would she want? What was propelling this journey? What came to mind was incredibly helpful in crafting the logline, as it helped me determine what was needed. Here’s the rough draft logline I created:
The true story of the only female GM of the highest-echelon strip club in NY, and her desperate search for a man to love her unconditionally.
Her journey is an incredible one, but her goal in life wasn’t to become the general manager of a strip club. What she truly wanted was to find the perfect guy, which as you can imagine is difficult in that dark world (as those are not the kind of men who frequent stripper establishments). She’s pursuing the improbable and possibly the impossible; that’s why we will care about her and root for her, just as if she were a fictional character.
As mentioned earlier, the most difficult part of true stories is that their writers know the facts. They become so tied to each and every part of the actual people, places, and events in their content that they can’t separate themselves enough to realize that all stories require some bit of embellishment or creative license. As a result, they are often (and naturally) upset by the adaptation process, because it always involves making adjustments to their original story. Sometimes, it involves so many changes that the literary credit changes from “based on” to “inspired by.” It’s one of the reasons why I can sell projects only with partials or proposals rather than full manuscripts. So much is going to change from book to screen that it becomes unimportant how much of the manuscript you have available as long as what you do have introduces the characters and the writing, and of course shows where the story is going.
Film, as a visual medium, will always call for necessary adjustments to the underlying written material to accommodate the difference between word and screen. I remember how much I enjoyed working with Sandra Brown on the adaptation of The Witness, because she really understood what was needed for reworking what was in her original novel. Anytime we were on a call and would discuss a situation where something worked in her story but was essentially in the character’s head, Sandra would say something like, “I realize that that works in the book but probably won’t work for film—let me see if I can come up with something more visual for the movie adaptation.” It was an absolute pleasure to have an author who was so attuned to the differences from page to screen. That’s rarely the case, however, so it’s incredibly important to have a producer (like myself) or an agent who understands how difficult adaptations can be, who can guide a writer through the changes step-by-step.
The fact that material is a true story or a memoir isn’t enough to market it to the entertainment industry, because with that classification as its sole selling tool, it sounds like many other stories in the same arena. You also come up against the erroneous assumption that these types of properties innately lack drama because they are not fictional stories from a writer’s creative mind. What’s amazing about a logline is that with all of these caveats working against the material, a perfectly crafted sentence is able to give nonfiction and memoir material the extra boost it badly needs to make it unbelievably sellable. And while loglines are always used for fiction material, sometimes seeing nonfiction and memoir work in that same light and gaining the perspective of forgetting “it’s all true” can help you craft your perfect sentence.
Many nonfiction authors tell me that they are just writing their stories down to get them on paper and share their experiences with others. They don’t really know what in particular makes it different than other content in the same arena, except that it’s their personal story. My answer is always the same. That’s not enough to sell it—and if you do not know what makes your story unique, you shouldn’t be writing it.
Chapter 18
It’s All About the Drama
GEORGES POLTI, A FRENCH WRITER OF THE LATE 1800s and early 1900s, famously created a list of 36 dramatic situations, designed to categorize every situation that might happen in a story. While I’m not sure I completely agree with all of Polti’s ideas, his basic suggestion is that every circumstance is an offshoot of one of these 36 scenarios. If so, then the challenge becomes making anything at all sound unique with only 36 basic choices, especially those stories that feel like something we’ve heard before.
Currently, I have quite a few projects in the pipeline that some might consider less-sensational fare. These are projects that fall smack-dab into one of those 36 situations. I want to take a moment to talk about them, because sometimes there’s a sense that properties which seem to inherently lack dynamic drama can’t be given a hook with which to sell them. As discussed regarding memoir and nonfiction works, however, that is simply not the case. With some work and creativity, any property can be given a strong marketing hook.
My first example is a property about a woman who, after a 23-year marriage, was left by her husband not because of another woman (the typical scenario) but because he found out that he had inoperable cancer. Suddenly, the man had a need to squeeze every ounce of life out of every minute of each remaining day that he had left, and she just didn’t fit into that plan. Sadly, cancer is not a new topic, nor is separation or divorce after many years of marriage. Additionally, the death of their marriage was accomplished with a minimum of fuss and a complete lack of fireworks or theatrics. So how can a creative and powerful logline be achieved from such lackluster beginnings?
The answer lies in focusing on the twist, or unexpected element, because that is the only drama available. Typically, in a situation where a man is leaving a woman after years of marriage, the first thought is always that there is another woman involved—a mistress. That’s what’s expected. However, in this case, the other woman is actually cancer. So that became the meat of the new logline. Here’s the rough draft:
A woman struggles to fight against the pull of her husband’s new mistress—cancer.
Now the story sounds intriguing, right? I took something that made this story seem like one of a million others and turned it on its ear. This is a perfect logline at work: it takes a story that is deficient in some essential drama (because it lacks uniqueness) and twists it to seem somehow new again.
I always tell writers to focus on what is unique about their stories. (In fact, I’ve probably used the word unique overmuch in this book!) The pervading thought is that if you can’t find that element, you don’t have a marketing tool, and a majority of the time that’s true. However, as you can see from my previous example, occasionally doing the complete opposite—thinking about what makes it expected—can help you come up with a way to actually make it unique. Cool, huh?
Another example is the story of a successful career woman, with a childhood trauma, who made the slow spiral into drugs and alcohol due to intense stress. If it sounds like you’ve heard this story before, you probably have. It’s not a new tale, nor is there much to make it shine amongst the multitude of other stories in this same arena. That said, a strong logline can still help this piece stand out from the pack and make an impact in the marketplace. But where to start?
To me, the uniqueness of this story comes out only when focusing on the drama inherent in extreme perspective. It’s a technique I fall back on a lot; it works very much in the vein of the “one grain of rice can tip the scale” idea. This woman was very high up: a powerful, achieving moneymaker who had it all together, until a seemingly insignificant and suppressed memory changed everything. From having the world to having nothing at all because of only one small thing—now that is the basis of a good, strong logline. Here’s the rough draft:
A powerful executive plummets into a drugged-out, near-death state because of a long-forgotten trauma: the murder of her newborn sister.
By centering the logline on the extremes of changing from a very successful executive to a
bottom-of-the-barrel druggie due to one simple memory, I’ve given it the pressure-cooker feel that it needs. I’ve provided an emotional hook where there really was none, because the story is one we’ve heard before. By concentrating my logline only on the far ends of the spectrum, I was able to create a strong perspective and give the story resonance.
In both of the previous illustrations, the path to the logline stemmed from finding the tiniest grain of drama, whether by twisting an expected element into something unexpected, or by steering the story toward an extreme perspective and exploiting it to the fullest. It’s the drama that sells the story’s excitement, so you have to mine for it wherever you can. But what do you do if neither of these approaches works for your particular tale?
There’s a final tool that I sometimes resort to using to create some punch when there are no other options open to me. This usually occurs either due to the lack of specificity (because of the type of story it is) or the fact that it’s a familiar tale that doesn’t lend itself to the creative logline generation options I’ve mentioned previously. It is a process I like to call word-flipping, and it involves changing the order of things (and a bit of vocabulary) to dramatic effect. Here’s a rough example:
ORIGINAL
A bum spends his life on the street trying unsuccessfully to regain the job that he had before the booze took it away.
This logline is okay, but it’s all about what the man has lost, so it sounds like a depressingly familiar story. It lacks a hook. There’s no twist to be mined in this situation, nor is there any extreme perspective to a homeless man looking for a job. In this particular instance, then, a bit of word-flipping (along with some choice vocabulary changes) can help make this logline much more vibrant.
REDO
The booze ruined him, so a street bum fights to regain the job that can provide a new life.
As you can see, the word order has been shifted a bit. It’s not a huge adjustment overall, and more work is needed, but it’s enough of a change that there are suddenly dynamics which weren’t there in the first iteration, and which thankfully make it infinitely more sellable.
Although it does work, word-flipping should always be a last resort, because it puts the protagonist in a subordinate position rather than in the powerful position at the front of the logline, and that is not typically a helpful shift. However, when there is no other drama to be had, this little trick can provide a much-needed tool to give your sentence some power.
As we now know, the whole point of a great logline is to be able to market your story quickly and effectively, and the main ingredient in being able to do that is drama. So, realistically, however you can unearth that valuable commodity, it’s worth the time and effort to do so.
Chapter 19
The Logline Process
ALTHOUGH THIS ALL STARTS TO SEEM FAIRLY EASY AS I break it down for you into its core elements, it took me years to acquire the skills needed to create a great logline. Even now, with the thousands of examples I’ve produced over time, it’s all about revising and rewriting. Honestly, sometimes it takes me a few days and fifteen to twenty fairly bad versions before I finally end up with something workable.
Sometimes walking away, going to work on something else, and then coming back to the logline fresh and with a new perspective changes everything for the better. I do this frequently when I get frustrated at not being able to whip the logline into the shape I think it should be in. I take a walk, go get a coffee, or even ignore the logline for a few days by working on something else entirely. So go ahead, start with ten sentences or even a crazy-long run-on sentence. Approach, walk away, and then re-approach your logline days or even weeks later. As long as it ultimately ends up as a concise one-liner that you are happy with after all of your drafts, you’ve done a terrific job!
At this time, I think it would be helpful to go through a step-by-step example of the creative process I go through in crafting one of my loglines. Let’s start with a fiction example.
VERSION 1
A man with a background in the military travels all over the world, where he ends up saving others in order to save himself.
So, as usual, the first version isn’t very good—in fact it’s pretty terrible. However, a good friend cautioned me when I was looking for my first home not to wait for the perfect house but to “just jump in” to the real estate market. It was good advice, because in reality you are never going to find the perfect house, only homes you want to fix up and make the way you want them to be. In the same fashion, if I waited for my logline to be perfect, I’d still be sitting with my hand silently hovering over the keyboard, staring at an empty page. So instead, I write down whatever I can think of about the story that’s in my brain. I know it will need tons of work but it gets me started and that’s the goal. Here’s the next iteration:
VERSION 2
An international man of mystery with a military background travels the world saving others in order to save himself.
Adding a silly phrase like “an international man of mystery” makes it clear that I was feeling like the logline needed some punch, a little more interest, but I went too far. This feels almost soap opera-esque—so it’s back to the drawing board. Here’s the next version:
VERSION 3
A troubled ex-military man travels the world to avoid his own personal demons, but in the process saves others, which helps him save himself.
As you can see, I was trying to give more of a feel for the protagonist by writing that he was “troubled,” which isn’t great, but makes the sentence better than it was. Also, I added “ex-military” because it helped convey that the character is a bit rogue but has skills. Lastly, I was trying to bring in information about what was driving him on this journey, but “personal demons” is just too general a concept. Here’s my next attempt:
VERSION 4
A troubled ex-Navy Seal exorcises his own personal demons by spending his life traveling the world to save others.
Here, I tried to make the demons more personal and get even more specific about the man by stating that he was a Navy Seal. But I wasn’t sure how much this really helped me, as it’s still at the same level of drama. I also expanded upon his journey by mentioning how much of his time is taken up by the pursuit for salvation, which improves upon the previous version slightly. Here’s the next version:
VERSION 5
A troubled ex-Navy Seal fights his own personal demons by forcing himself to travel the world saving the lives of strangers.
I thought that switching to more powerful vocabulary like “fights” and “forcing” would help give the sentence some much-needed drama. I also wanted the generic “others” to become the more defined “strangers.” At this point, it’s creeping closer to a decent logline. Here’s the next try:
VERSION 6
An emotionally damaged ex-Navy Seal fights his inner demons, in penance by traveling the world saving the lives of strangers.
I wasn’t really happy with “troubled,” because it’s too vague, so I switched it in this version to “emotionally damaged.” I’m trying to get a description of the man that more fully expresses his state of mind, while also trying to hint at what is motivating him. I also added the “penance,” thinking that might help with motivation, but ended up taking it right back out in the next draft because it’s too vague a concept—and as we know, loglines are all about specifics. Here’s my next iteration:
VERSION 7
An emotionally damaged ex-Navy Seal fights inner demons by traveling the world in pursuit of saving the lives of strangers.
Well, I cut some words (including “penance”) simply because, at ten dollars per word, they weren’t helping me. This version is tighter but overall not that much better, though it does have the protagonist actively pursuing (“in pursuit of”) something, and active voice is always helpful. That said, I knew I needed to make some much more drastic changes, as I was seven versions in and still far from my goal of a good logline. So,
after taking some time away from working on this sentence to get some perspective, here’s the next version I came up with:
VERSION 8
A degenerate ex-Seal fights inner demons by forcing himself to continuously save the lives of complete strangers.
“Degenerate” was probably a poor choice, as it gives him a sinister edge that I didn’t want, but I was still toying with vocabulary that would allow the reader to understand the character’s heart and motivations. I also cut out “Navy” because it didn’t add anything, and most people will get that from the word “Seal.” He’s “forcing himself” here, which was my attempt to infuse some of the drama I felt was still missing. He’s also saving other people’s lives “continuously,” as I wanted it to feel like he was driven … but I was still unhappy with the logline overall. Here’s the next version, after I took yet another short break from it:
VERSION 9
A bottomed-out ex-Seal fights inner demons by forcing himself to continuously save the lives of complete strangers.
With the phrase “bottomed-out,” I finally have a description of the protagonist that I like. It shows that he is on the bottom rung emotionally, so (1) you can see where he is starting from at the beginning of his journey and (2) you can understand why he is doing what he is doing for these people. But I still felt that there was something missing. I thought about this for quite a while and then realized the thing that was missing: the stakes. What does he have to lose if he does not remain along this path? So I added in some information, without adding a ton of word count, to tell the reader what would happen if he did not continue pursuing his journey:
VERSION 10
A bottomed-out ex-Seal fights to overcome his suicidal tendencies by continuously saving the lives of complete strangers.
By including “suicidal tendencies,” I was able to show that if the protagonist did not continue to save others he would end up emotionally bankrupt and take his own life. This was the vital ingredient that had been missing throughout the generation process. While my other adjustments were necessary along the way, this change is the one that finally brought the logline to life. Once I’d included what was at stake, my logline was complete.
Sell Your Story in Single Sentence Page 10
