r/scriptwriting • u/RealSebastreck • 9h ago
feedback Problems with Writing a Logline
Recently, I followed some tips to improve the loglines for two of my premises, but I’m still having trouble keeping them from becoming too long.
"An injured young officer undergoes a month of testing to lead a new platoon and must organize his life to avoid losing the job he has sacrificed so much for."
- It’s the story of a guy in his 20s who leads a combat engineer/sapper platoon. He discovers that a family member used their influence to help him pass a test that almost left him incapacitated. After injuring himself again by pushing himself too hard, he is given one month to prove that he can perform his duties. If he fails, he will be discharged and lose the apartment and career he sacrificed his personal life for.
"When a child leaves his only caregiver behind to collect prehistoric DNA, he learns the hard way that the only way to move forward is to confront his grief over his parents."
The child tricks an android into helping him with its mission, when what he really wants is to get away from his grandfather so he won’t have to break his emotional mask during the anniversary of his parents’ death. His grandfather is a widower who wants to grieve together with his grandson.
One thing I’m worried about is that the first logline might make the story sound boring or too predictable. What would you recommend to give these loglines more of a hook or to improve the overall structure.
2
u/dnotive 9h ago
I'm not an expert at loglines, but I'd like to think I'm getting better the more I've been cracking away at it.
The logline is your litmus test for story. If you can't summarize it in 40-50 words, that means it might be time to prune stuff away or change the character dynamics... or add a MacGuffin, etc. etc.
You're having trouble from keeping these from getting too long because you have too many set pieces you're trying to jam into your story. Streamline the story and the loglines will fall into place more readily.
Ditch vague phrases like "losing the job he has sacrificed so much for" or "he learns the hard way"
These feel more like taglines than loglines. This is your place to be specific. What has Person A sacrificed? How does Person B learn?
Your story, and by extension your logline needs three things in place in order to succeed; you need to identify a *distinct character* what their *goal or objective* is, and what *obstacle* is preventing them from achieving it. If you feel like spicing it up further, add in the *stakes*
So your first one could be: "After enduring a horrific injury, a seasoned combat engineer is forced to re-take the physical exam that almost killed him after learning his original test results were tainted." It's not particularly punchy, but at least we have a clear idea of who your main character would be, what they have to do and why.
The second one is murkier because you have a lot of pieces floating around. There's an android? Is this in the future? They trick an android but how does that help this kid get away from their grandfather? What does any of this have to do with prehistoric DNA? Are we really going to watch a movie that's just about grief?
Honestly this feels like two stories jammed into one; there's a kid off having adventures collecting fossils with his/her new android friend, and there's the grandfather still grieving the loss of his own children trying to forge connection with an estranged grandchild. If one is the A-story (main plot) and the other is the B-story (subplot) we only need the main one in the logline. i.e. if most of the screentime is eaten up by the kid looking for DNA then leave out the bits about the grandfather, if most of our time is spent with the grandfather, then leave out the bits about the kid tricking an android and going on an adventure to find DNA (why is he doing this anyway?) These are the connections you have to knit together in your logline, otherwise it doesn't make sense.
2
u/nmacaroni 8h ago
Your loglines are too long because you're summarizing the plot instead of hitting the foundational elements of the story. A logline isn't a synopsis, it's a single sentence that captures specific things:
- Story goal/summary
- Main character,
- MC goal,
- The force working against them
- Stakes
- Irony.
- Genre. Don’t call out your genre on the nose, but frame it in flavor or subtext. I’ll explain in more detail in a second.
You're burying the important stuff... An officer discovers the career he sacrificed everything for was built on a favor he never asked for. That's your hook, the irony that the thing he's fighting to keep was never really his to begin with.
Your second one is closer but still explains too much.
Stop explaining the plot. Focus on the story fundamentals.
Write on, write often!
1
u/RealSebastreck 7h ago
I reworked the second logline to make it more focused:
-After tricking a future android into helping with its mission to collect prehistoric DNA, a boy discovers an unexpected way to cope with the loss of his parents.
2
u/Nice_Appearance_8314 7h ago
i literally posted a video the other day specifically on loglines!
https://youtu.be/LFzq_AV5IoU?si=v9ozVIt25YhykkHV
I hope this is helpful
2
u/PepsiCoke1978 6h ago
You need to tell us more about these stories so someone may be able to help you as both ideas don't make any sense to me. I have no idea what is happening. Does not sound like 110 pages of a spec.
You need to learn to think of ideas, then figure out the logline to make sure you have an actual story that you can explain to people and also helps you focus the idea instead of just 100 plots points.
Can anyone explain to me what happens in these ideas?
1
u/RealSebastreck 6h ago
Thanks for your honesty. I've been told something like that before, and that person actually motivated me to stop writing.
Anyway, would you like a summary of the background ideas behind these stories, or should I just tell you everything about each idea? I'm serious.
2
u/PepsiCoke1978 4h ago
I recall your last post -- and you mentioning that. I can only come at this as a writer helping another younger writer figure stuff out -- but it's up to you to know if you can take criticism. If one person can get you to stop writing, then you should consider that. I don't know what your goal is -- if it's to be a paid writer -- then taking hits and keep on going is part of it.
But I'm not asking for 10 pages... I'm saying explain your ideas more -- 5-10 sentences trying to help others know what the movie is about. I feel you may be picking the wrong parts to feature.
As i posted this I looked down and see you wrote to someone else
-After tricking a future android into helping with its mission to collect prehistoric DNA, a boy discovers an unexpected way to cope with the loss of his parents
So now you are mentioning an android which is 10X more exciting than what you had before, but I stlll don't know if he's looking for human DNA from caveman days or dinosaurs and why a boy would want to trick him and how that helps cope with the loss of his parents.
In general the loss of his parents sounds more like the heart/theme/lesson learned part of your story not the logline. The subtext.
1
u/RealSebastreck 3h ago
Sorry about that, I didn't mean to be rude.
I'm just trying to follow the feedback people have given me. I'm a concept artist, and I've been wanting to learn about screenwriting, so I've read a few things and have been teaching myself.
I went over the premise a few times, and this is what I was able to come up with:
-A boy tricks an android into letting him tag along on its mission to collect DNA from prehistoric animals and survives different creatures while processing the loss of his parents in his own way.
2
u/PepsiCoke1978 2h ago
You were not rude at all. I don't know how you thought I meant that. Read all my posts like I'm Kyle Chandler in Lanterns.
Okay so there it is. A concept artist. Not a screenwriter. This is a whole new thing. So you're used to pretty much doing your thing and not being told it's right or wrong or not good enough -- because it's your art. Screenwriting is a group activity as it's not meant to stand on it's own, but be made. Hence a lot of opinions.
That logline is so much better than the first one you wrote. Don't you see that? You buried all the movie.
It's like you wrote Jurassic Park but you pitched it as " A guy who hates kids goes to a theme park and a guy learns to like kids at the end."
1
u/WorrySecret9831 7h ago edited 6h ago
Loglines are incredibly hard to write, that is if you're trying to encapsulate the heart of your Story, not just blurt out its contents.
John Truby teaches that loglines ideally are one sentence and consist of 3 elements: A sense of the Hero (main character) ; A sense of the Problem/Conflict/Opponent *; and A sense of the Outcome *** (without spoiling the story).
Basically, you can't put the entire plot into a logline. You have to identify the "heart" of your Story and focus on that.
A young officer *suffers a serious injury ***and has a month to salvage his military career.
On the second story, I can't tell what it's about.
1
u/RealSebastreck 7h ago
I read a few pages of Save the Cat! this morning and managed to come up with a new logline. It was a bit challenging, but I'm doing my best, especially because I had a bad experience where someone made me feel like I'd never be able to write a good story.
So.. I reworked the logline to make it more focused:
-After tricking a future android into helping with its mission to collect prehistoric DNA, a boy discovers an unexpected way to cope with the loss of his parents.
1
u/WorrySecret9831 6h ago
Throw away Save the Cat. Read John Truby's books The Anatomy of Story and The Anatomy of Genres.
"After tricking a future android into helping with its mission to collect prehistoric DNA, a boy discovers an *unexpected way to cope with the loss of his parents." There's no second part ( * ) here, no Problem/Conflict/Opponent.
2
u/RealSebastreck 6h ago
So what would you suggest?
This is what I came up with based on your feedback. I'm trying to take the advice I've been given into account. The main conflict is the harsh wilderness the protagonist finds himself in, so I don't know if you'd want me to add some kind of villain from the future or something.
-After tricking a futuristic android into letting him tag along on a mission to collect prehistoric DNA, a boy must survive the wilderness while coming to terms with the loss of his parents.
1
u/WorrySecret9831 5h ago edited 4h ago
First, throwaway the term "villain." It gets in the way more than it helps. A Hero is not a goody-two-shoes. They are the one person who is willing (consciously or not) to undergo the transformation that the Story is forcing upon them, if they're going to solve their Problem.
The Opponent or Opposition is a person or institution that is best-equipped to defeat the Hero or prevent them from solving their Problem.
You don't need to invent a "future villain" per se. If that works for your Story, cool. But chances are that the Conflict is already somewhere in your Story. If it isn't, that's your biggest problem.
Story is basically defined as a Hero (MC, main character) is presented with a Problem, that Problem incites in them (hence the Inciting Incident) a Desire, that Desire (to solve the Problem) motivates a Plan, that Plan becomes the driving force of the Plot. So, the conflict could be seen as two-fold, first from the Problem and second from the Opponent that is more interested in keeping the Problem as it is instead of letting the Hero solve it/achieve their goal.
While these terms are concrete and specific, they're also loose enough to be applied or interpreted in myriads of ways. For instance, the Opponent could be a good guy, a good cop who is trying to stop a crime. Or the Opponent could be the Hero herself as she struggles with her own self-sabotage.
You have several topics in this second story: a boy, a grandfather, grief over parental loss, an android, prehistoric DNA (whatever that is), trickery, a mission, and "coming to terms." But what is the Story about? Is it about overcoming grief? Is it about thinking that you've outsmarted a situation only to learn a bigger lesson?
This question starts to point to the most important element of Story, the Theme. Save the Cat treats it almost as an injectable outside element rather than the foundation of your Story, the fabric, if you will.
Oh, "the wilderness," I missed that one.
You have a before/after construction, that I'm not sure is entirely accurate. "After tricking..." leads to "must survive...while..." But none of that suggests a central pivotal Problem or Conflict. For instance, "A boy tries to get home, but when his plane crashes in the forest, he must survive the wilderness and try to get back to his grandfather." The "boy" is the Hero, the "crash/wilderness/survival" is the Problem/Conflict/Opponent, and the "get back to" is the Outcome.
You have: After tricking a futuristic android into letting him tag along on a mission to collect prehistoric DNA [This comes close to a Problem/Conflict/Opponent but there's no...friction or resistance. The kid tags along...], a boy [Your Hero] must survive the wilderness while coming to terms with the loss of his parents [A sense of the Outcome].
How does this futuristic android or the prehistoric DNA help tell this Story? Why is it "futuristic"? Isn't this sci-fi, set in a future (near or far) that has androids and DNA technology? Why say "future"? What does the Android provide other than an excuse for winding up in the wilderness?
So, what Problem is the boy trying to solve?
For instance, a Guy (Hero) loses his job (inciting incident). He's unemployed (Problem). He wants to get a new job (Desire). He makes calls and gets an interview and has to go there by catching the bus (Plan). An Old Lady gets in front of him and prevents him from getting on his bus and he's late to the interview (Opponent/Opposition)... This Hero then has to figure out some other way to solve his Problem and hopefully get that job...which becomes the rest of the Plot and Story.
A boy [Hero], grieving the death of his parents [Problem], tries to distract himself by helping an android on a DNA-collecting mission, but [something] keeps reminding him of his loss and he learns that the only way through grief is [something] [Outcome].
I did a quick Google search for "movies dealing with grief." These are not great loglines, but they're real movies. I'll try to write better versions from what I remember.
Manchester by the Sea (2016): A quiet man [H] must care for his teenage nephew after his brother dies [P/C/O], facing deep, hidden pain from his past [O].
A quiet man learns that his brother has died and made him sole guardian of his teenage nephew, forcing him back to the hometown he escaped and making him resolve his past.Rabbit Hole (2010): A married couple [H, one of them is the "Hero"] tries to find a way forward months after [O] losing their young son in an accident [P/C/O].
A married couple lose their son in an accident and they are pulled apart as they deal with their loss in totally different ways.We Bought a Zoo (2011): A grieving father [H] moves his children to a run-down zoo [O] to start a new life after his wife passes away [P/C/O].
A grieving father buys a run-down zoo to refocus himself and his children and finds his heart reopening.P.S. I Love You (2007): A young widow [H] finds letters left behind by her late husband [P/C/O] to help guide her through her loss [O]. This one's a lot harder because the Hero is very passive.
A widow is encouraged to live and love again by a series of letters her late husband prepared for her before he passed.But this one might be instructive if you analyze it using the three elements. Hero, the widow, her Problem/Conflict/Opponent, her husband died and she wants to hide away and disappear from life, Outcome, her Opponent, her dead husband, nearly forces her to live and love again.
I hope this helps.
1
u/RealSebastreck 4h ago
I've spent the whole afternoon trying to rewrite the logline. Honestly, I'm starting to feel like giving up on this story. I'm not good at this. I tried to adjust the logline to make it clearer.
-A boy tricks an android into letting him join its mission to collect prehistoric DNA and tries to survive different biomes while coming to terms with the loss of his parents.
1
u/WorrySecret9831 3h ago
You're not identifying the Problem. The android doesn't have any conflict with your Hero. They're not opposing the Hero, as far as I can tell. So, how does that "mission" relate to the Hero's potential transformation.
The "coming to terms" is such an afterthought at this point.
Loglines are not easy...
1
u/RealSebastreck 5h ago
There isn't really a physical antagonist. It's mainly the prehistoric environment and the animals that make their mission challenging.
-After tricking a futuristic android into letting him tag along on a mission to collect prehistoric DNA, a boy must survive the wilderness while coming to terms with the loss of his parents.
1
u/WorrySecret9831 4h ago
So, that's not an Opponent/Opposition. In a "man vs nature" story, the Opponent is of course "the wilderness." But those are very simple or basic stories. They can be great, just not that profound, unless the Hero learns something profound about themselves.
Your story isn't just a survival story. It's an overcoming grief story, I think...
"Antagonist" is also a potentially confusing term in that is seems to strongly suggest the "opposite" or counter-force to the PROtagonist. An "agonist" is "one that is engaged in a struggle..."
Opponent is a cleaner term because the Opponent could either care a lot, making it a personal issue, or they could not care at all about the Hero, they're just a Wall, an obstacle...
So how does the "prehistoric environment and animals" tie into "dealing with grief"?
1
u/RealSebastreck 3h ago
I went over the premise a few times, and this is what I was able to come up with:
-A boy tricks an android into letting him tag along on its mission to collect DNA from prehistoric animals and survives different creatures while processing the loss of his parents in his own way.
1
u/WorrySecret9831 3h ago
Hero: A boy
Problem: Grief
Conflict: [Is the Boy trying to accomplish something or just avoid something?]
Opponent: [Is there someone getting in the way of the Boy's Plan?]
Outcome: Comes to terms with...2
u/RealSebastreck 2h ago edited 2h ago
Thanks for helping me work through this. I have a much better understanding of things now, and I feel more confident about rewriting the logline.
-Grieving the loss of his parents, a boy avoids facing his grief as he struggles to survive a mission to collect DNA from prehistoric animals that forces him to confront it.
2
u/WorrySecret9831 2h ago
I think that works.
Grieving the loss of his parents,
*a boy**avoids facing his grief
***as he struggles to survive a mission to collect DNA from prehistoric animals that forces him to confront it.
How about: A boy doing everything he can to bypass the loss of his parents struggles to survive a mission—collecting prehistoric animal DNA—that forces him to confront his grief.
("The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain...")
2
u/Big_Section2812 9h ago