

However, before she reaches her destination, she will murder once more.” She manipulates three heartless, braindead and cowardly strangers to help her escape punishment and get back home. “A disgruntled teenager runs away from home and finds herself in unfamiliar territory when she accidentally commits a murder. For example, take this pitch of The Wizard of Oz: Being able to concisely identify the main character, their emotional state and attributes, the dilemma or conflict and the obstacle is confirmation that you understand the building blocks of your story.Īnd when you are pitching your story, you want to make sure that what you are selling is as advertised. If you give away the ending, you lose the ability to give a satisfying viewing or reading experience.īesides the usefulness of the logline as a selling tool, it’s also incredibly beneficial to the writer to see if they truly understand their story. A logline is a tease, it is meant to entice you to want to read the screenplay or watch the film. Hopefully you noticed what we didn’t include in a logline - how it ends. In the Star Wars example above that is the battle station and the evil warlord. Your logline must include the story element that hinders the main character from achieving their goal. Antagonist Force - All good storytelling includes conflict.

For example, the question in Star Wars is “In a galaxy far away, will a young farmer from a desert planet master his dormant powers to save humanity from a world-destroying battle station, while also attempting to rescue a Princess from the powerful and mysterious clutches of an evil warlord?” Turn the question into a statement and you have a log line.

Concentrate on character revealing adjectives which can give the reader a window into the main character’s emotional state, such as “a grieving father” or a “lonely architect”. Protagonist - Don’t get bogged down in names which crowd the logline (unless it’s a biopic and the person is well known).This all may sound easy, but distilling the complexities of your screenplay into two lines can often be a challenge. If your film is genre based, you may also have to include a brief set-up that gives context to the world. A logline is a one or two line pitch of your story structure (usually under 40 words) that clues the reader into who is driving the narrative (the protagonist), what they want (the goal) and what stands in their way of getting it (the antagonist force).
