Tackling the Logline

Rouge Waver Mike Scherer comments: The biggest bugg-a-boo I have is creating an effective logline. Very hard. Harder than writing the actual script.

Heeeelllllllp!

Mike, you aren't alone. Many writers find loglines very challenging. I've gotten pretty good at it not only from having to write them daily for clients (not my own work, so easier, but good training) but from having attended the Writer's Boot Camp where, for the first several weeks, there was a strong focus on pithy reductions. And by that I do not mean lemon curd.

A cornerstone of my take on screenwriting - doing it, teaching it and living it - is that a writer has to use both the micro and macro view of the material at all times. Zoom in. Zoom out. Picture a person working on a vast quilt - peering closely at the stitches in their hands, glancing over three squares to the left to see how the flow of the pattern is doing, and then standing up, stepping back and, hands on hips, looking at the whole quilt. That's what writers need to be doing all the time. Zoom in. Zoom out. Micro and macro.

For many writers, the logline is something to work on after the script is already written. Cardinal sin in my book. The logline should have been the compass rose all along. But I get ahead of myself. What commonly happens is that writers get way too enmeshed in the micro page-work and write a logline like this:

A civil war vet has a failing ranch and someone threatens to cut off the water and he doesn't know what to do and then they burn down his barn and he's really upset and then he gets a proposition, to help escort a dangerous criminal to the train station on time and they'll pay him $200 but on the very first night out the criminal kills someone and he realizes he's in pretty deep and then......

Please kill me now. Just. Kill me.

How about the freaking upshot already??

A desperate man with a failing ranch gets in too deep when he accepts $200 to escort a murderous outlaw with a devoted gang to the train station on time to stand trial.

Ohhhhhh now we've boiled YUMA down to it's most entertaining essence. Few details embellish this logline, just the upshot.

And that's what readers are asked to do when they write loglines: UPSHOT PLEASE.

But a logline you are writing needs to be a little sexier than the upshot only. Not longer, just sexier. Here's the logline a reader would mostly likely jot out for YUMA:

A failing rancher escorts a dangerous criminal to the train station.

Upshot and upshot only. But the one I used as an example earlier is closer to what you the writer would write as you represent your script when submitting.

A desperate man with a failing ranch gets in too deep when he accepts $200 to escort a murderous outlaw with a devoted gang to the train station on time to stand trial.

So let's look at that logline again. Is the genre clear - yeah, rancher, outlaw, got it. Who is the antagonist? Murderous outlaw, devoted gang, got it. Ticking clock? Train station on time. Main character and flaw? Desperate man with failing ranch. Crux of the conflict? Accepts $200 to escort murderous outlaw.

So like a dragonfly in the garden, we flew over the meadow of the script and alighted only on the key moments, the brightest flowers, the UPSHOT.

In my opinion, many writers struggle with their logline for two reasons - they don't practice doing it enough (exercise to follow) and they are writing the logline AFTER they wrote the script and, the biggest, worst culprit of all - the script they are trying to logline is too dense, confusing and meandering to really have a big upshot. And that is the worst thing of all.

I recommend working on a logline (or premise, actually, in this usage, I'll 'splain momentarily) before you outline your script. Then continue to amend the logline or outline as needed. You really shouldn't write your logline AFTER the script is done. Again, the logline should have been your compass rose all along.

It's kinda like a pyramid:

Logline
Premise
Outline
Script

So yeah, it's pretty damn tough to write a logline when boiling down the essence of the script has never entered your mind until page 86.

The difference between a premise and a logline is this: A premise is simply a longer version of the logline, maybe a paragraph, that is for YOUR use, YOU the writer, as you work on your outline. The premise can and will change often as you are shaping your story. And yes, there's room for spontaneity, if you change something on your pages post outline, yes, tweak the premise and loglines to reflect that change.

So what are the components of a good logline, whether you are being a Rouge Wave ROCK STAR and writing the log and premise before writing the script or being a goofball and attempting to write them to describe a script you've already written?

A good logline should include:

The main character and his or her flaw-weakness-downfall
(Desperate man, failing ranch)

The antagonist and his or her general m.o.
(Dangerous outlaw, devoted gang, trial a no-go)

Set up
(Failing ranch, wounded pride, needs $$$ for winter)

Complication/Crux of the conflict
Gets in too deep
train on time
devoted gang

So here is a fun exercise to practice writing loglines. This is something we used to do at the Writer's Boot Camp, I forget what they called the exercise.

By the way, these can be and are, obviously, silly, guys, but this exercise has real value because you might just find a good story doing a silly exercise, but you also will be building and toning the muscles of cobbling a story together from the macro view.

Make a list of main characters and flaws/problems:

Desperate rancher
Broke, alcoholic divorcee
Greedy, lying store manager
Self-centered, washed up rock star

Now make a list of antagonists:

Cruel and shrewd divorce lawyer
Dangerous outlaw
Demonic spirit
Mentally unstable fan

Now a list of ticking clocks:

Crossing the state line before the wedding
Making it to Burning Man on time for the concert
Making it to the train on time to stand trial
Sealing the crack in the time-space continuum before Satan finds out

Now a list of set ups:

Gets drunk and sleeps with her soon-to-be brother-in law
Is too high to show up for an audition and gets kicked out of the band
Can't make payments on the ranch, water gets cut off
Escapes from hell after throwing a demonic party and rupturing the time/space continuum

And a list of the crux of conflict:

Okay, I've officially run out of steam over my coffee here - you guys can take over from here. But are you getting the point? Like those flip books when we were kids, where your animal could have the head of an ostrich and the body of a bear and the feet of an alligator? Mix and match. Mess around with jotting down these loglines components and then taking the components and writing a logline. Just do it - have fun.

In fact - the Rouge Waver who can come up with the pithiest, most entertaining, I might actually see that movie logline, using the components above wins a lifetime supply of cupcakes. Any takers?

And Mike, if you still have questions, send them to me and we'll do loglines part II, III and IV if we have to. But the upshot is this: it ain't easy, so don't beat yourself up. It takes practice and lots of it.

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