Why Loglines Matter

There’s been some debate lately whether writers need to worry about loglines. For some, loglines represent useless marketing materials for amateurs to stress over. Professionals don’t write loglines, so you shouldn’t worry about it either. What matters is the script.

But on the other side you have managers asking for loglines as part of the query. Contests request loglines with submissions, which then list them when winners are announced. They fill writers’ websites and profile pages on Coverfly and Black List. Surely there must be some use to them?

Examples

Before we get into the utility of loglines, let’s breakdown what they actually are. IMDB is not a great source – those are user-generated and could have come from anywhere. Better to look at year end lists – Black List, Hit List, Bitch List, A List, etc. – to get a feel for the form and some professional examples.

Some great examples from Black List 2020 and why they work. First, from Headhunter by Sophie Dawson:

A high-functioning cannibal selects his victims based on their Instagram popularity, but finds his
habits shaken by a man who wants to be eaten.

The first half gives us a few interesting details that are specific and set the script apart – cannibals are always juicy material, and the Instagram angle is very current and fresh. Then the second half gets shaken by a compelling complication – a man who wants to be eaten. This is a problem that would only impact this main character, and now we want to know what happens.

Here’s another, If You Were the Last by Angela Broussa:

Two astronauts who think they’ve been lost in space forever fall in love, becoming content with
their isolated lives, only to suddenly have to return to Earth.

Astronauts stuck together in space, falling in love – a fascinating setting with high stakes and no room for escape. And again we get that great complication in the second half, one that is directly linked to the set-up – what happens when they return home? We as a species are generally sappy, so we’re already rooting for these crazy kids to overcome the obstacles we’re picturing that will get in the way of their love.

One more, Isaac Adamson’s Possum Song:

After discovering his secret songwriting partner dead, a country music star struggling to record
new material makes a Faustian bargain with a family of possums who have taken up residency within his walls.

Again we’ve got an interesting setting – country music – and a character with a problem – a secret dead songwriting partner. Already juicy stuff when the complication comes along- devil possums! It’s surprising, tells us about the tone, and gets you asking what the hell is going to happen?

As a Marketing Prop

When it comes to selling your script (and yourself), loglines can be useful. Especially for high concept scripts or stories about underseen worlds – a sentence or two is all you need to convey why the story is interesting.

But as with everything in trying to become a working screenwriter, they’re not necessary for breaking in. Ultimately what matters is the script and getting the right person to read it. A great logline can be a way to achieve that goal, but so can networking, contests, or having a cousin who’s a manager’s assistant. There’s no one way forward, and aspiring writers just need to be comfortable trying whatever avenues are available to them.

As a Piece of Writing

There are other lenses for viewing loglines, though. And to me one of the most important is how it tests you as a writer. Screenwriting is all about concision – how compactly you can clearly convey an idea. And the logline is the perfect test of this skill.

Anybody can get their idea across if they have 25 pages to do it in. But can you do it in 25 words? Can you share the essence of your script and why someone should want to read it?

Writing, at its heart, is just about communicating well. The tools of screenwriting – the words you choose, the spacing on the page, the slugline, every single choice you make – those are all just different ways to communicate to the reader. To create for them the experience you want them to have.

So if you really want to test your writing ability, challenge yourself to create that experience in just a sentence or two. Try to wield your words so skillfully that they invoke a whole story in someone’s head with just a handful of words.

One of the first signs that a writer is on the inexperienced side is how cluttered their logline is. Not because they’ve failed some arcane test of screenwriting and don’t know the form, but because they’re demonstrating a lack of basic control over their use of language. They use three words when one will suffice.

As a Stress Test

Just as importantly, a loglines show if you, the writer, actually know what your story is about.

The logline forces you to drill down and ask what the most important parts of your story are. They strip away the clutter and fluff, and often as a result reveal a story that isn’t ready yet. It asks the most basic questions of your story – who is this about? what do they want?

Often when helping someone in the #logline-workshop channel on our free server, the questions about the logline become about the story itself. The logline won’t come together because the story doesn’t come together. Or the log doesn’t feel fresh because the script isn’t bringing anything new to a very familiar story.

So if you want to see if an idea is working, a quick and easy way to find out is if you can condense the story down to a logline.

The Takeaway

So loglines – while they may not be make or break for you selling a screenplay or getting representation, they are incredibly useful for assessing your craft and concept. In fact, I’ve come around to their usefulness at the brainstorming phase. Before I outline I make sure I have the logline down. If done right, it will always remind me of what the heart and hook of the story is.

The best way to get better at them is to practice. Put together the loglines for any projects you’re currently writing. Participate in our daily #titlepalooza challenges – or even pick up a copy in book form to test yourself with.

Loglines aren’t a panacea. They’re not going to magically fix or sell your script. But they are a useful tool. So test yourself, and see if you can tell the idea of a story in 25 words or so.

Resources

At this point you’re hopefully really pumped about loglines and want to get at it. Fortunately we have some resources for you.

First, Chris Lockhart, formerly of WME, put together a great primer on how loglines work.

John August also weighed in on the basic building blocks of a logline.