What does “goes after it against great odds” give us? Act 2.Īct 2 is where we show off the Fun and Games of this particular story, a.k.a. The “goes after it against great odds” portion is vital to a good logline, and the most often overlooked. Here are three of the most common stumbles I see with loglines, and my advice on how you can avoid them:Ībove I pointed out the essential elements of a logline as: “Someone ( the protagonist) wants something ( the story goal) and goes after it against great odds and/or obstacles ( the antagonist and the conflict).” (And now I’ll stop reminding you how hard it is and let you in on a few logline-writing tips.) Someone ( the protagonist) wants something ( the story goal) and goes after it against great odds and/or obstacles ( the antagonist and the conflict).īut even though the components of a logline are straightforward, writing a good one is surprisingly difficult. The essentials of a logline are simply the fundamental elements of your story: Playing around with loglines is a quick and easy way to begin to make choices about your story, to test different versions, and to see if there’s a movie there. That’s why, in the online Save the Cat!® Beat Sheet Workshops (shameless plug), we hit the ground running in Week 1 by working on loglines for the ideas that students are thinking about writing. Working out your story idea in one sentence is also a valuable part of the development process. It answers the “what is it” question, clearly and enticingly.īut loglines aren’t only for pitching your finished screenplay. Everyone, all across town, in a position to buy or in the effort to sell, is trying to wrap their brains around the same question your friends were asking on Saturday night: “What is it?”Ī good logline tells enough to convey a solid sense of the movie, but is succinct enough that the listener doesn’t get bored or confused. A good “What is it?” is the coin of the realm. Because one great sentence can pitch your project, hook a reader, and open the right door.Īs Blake Snyder writes in Save the Cat!®: If you’ve tried to write them, you know: sometimes it feels nearly impossible to distill an entire movie into one pithy sentence. They strike fear in the hearts of writers.
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