Logline Therapy: How to Make Your Screenplay Logline Razor Sharp!

Most screenwriters hate writing the logline. Sometimes, trying to sum up one hundred pages plus of your magnum opus into a few words is like squeezing an elephant into an eggcup. But the reality is that loglines are essential to cut through the swathe of slush piles and pitch meetings that make up a screenwriter’s life.

Recently, I was asked to provide feedback on a logline written by a fellow Storylink member. Benjamin Ray’s script ‘Marcus and Faith’ recently won the Thriller category of the 2007 Pacific Northwest Screenwriters Contest. Benjamin is passionate about the importance of competitions to amateur scriptwriters. "It's  important to place in contests -- it gives you another reason to stay in the game and move up the ladder. But apply to all contests that are well-managed. Do your research."

Writing the Script - Marcus and Faith

"Marcus and Faith" was Benjamin's second script, and draws extensively on his personal experiences as a stand-up comedian. "We cannot write a screenplay in a vacuum. We have to live, taste and smell the subject we write about. Stand-up comedy is a complicated and unpredictable career, both emotionally and mentally, and this provided me with a rich source of character information and backstory."

Benjamin is doing everything he can to put his script in the best position while he enjoys twelve months of agency representation. "I'm currently approaching independent film directors and producers and attending film festivals. My goal is for "Marcus and Faith" to open up at the Cannes Film Festival." You can visit Benjamin's website to follow his progress, or you can read a sneak peak of the first thirty pages of Marcus and Faith.

Refining the Logline

My professional role as a copywriter allows me a different viewpoint on how to write a strong logline. Most scriptwriters are used to writing for length, not brevity, so producing a logline can be counter-intuitive to many, but copywriting is about distilling a message down to its most economical form.

Benjamin’s logline suffers from verbosity and a tendency to include unnecessary information. A logline needs to boil the entire film down to a couple of base concepts – after all, it is this concept that sells the script, not a character’s back story.

Logline to "Marcus and Faith" by Benjamin Ray

Marcus and Faith is a gritty love story about an afflicted stand-up comedian and a mysterious dancer. Marcus Anderson is addicted to painkillers. When he’s reunited with his high school crush, Faith, now aspiring for Broadway, a torrid romance ensues. He believes she’s going to be his savior. Just one problem -- she’s unknowingly embroiled in her father’s high-society known as Kama-Sin -- dealing in prostitution, human trafficking and murder. Marcus' love for Faith lures him blindly into the bowel of Kama-Sin and ultimately into an abyss of pure evil where they make a daring and passionate attempt to save each other.

Let’s look at the opening line. 

“Marcus and Faith is a gritty love story about an afflicted stand-up comedian and a mysterious dancer.”

Firstly, we don’t need to mention the title of the script. The title is already emblazoned across your title page, the heading of your email, the appointment in their diary (if you are pitching directly). No doubt you’ve also placed the title as a heading above whatever document you’ve put this logline into. These are wasted words.

Ditto the next few words that merely tell us we’re reading a gritty love story. I have two issues with this. One; this script won in the thriller category, not romance, so by choosing to pin your script to a single genre mast, you could be limiting your scope. Second, the genre should be obvious from what follows. If the situation is funny, we’ll know it’s a comedy. If it involves zombies invading a small town, we’ll know it’s a horror. Benjamin’s logline makes it quite clear that love is at the centre of this story, so tagging it as a love story is irrelevant.

So now we are left with a sentence that merely says “An afflicted stand-up comedian and a mysterious dancer. What is the affliction? Why is she mysterious? If they are relevant to the logline, then we need to say what they are. If they aren’t, we cut them out. As this sentence is now little more than a fragment, we can fold it into the next line.

Ah, but the second line contains the affliction. Combining the two sentences gives us “Marcus, a painkiller addicted stand-up comedian and a mysterious dancer.” Still a fragment and we still don’t know why she’s mysterious, so let’s look at the third line and see if we can’t roll this into the mix as well.

“When he’s reunited with his high school crush, Faith, now aspiring for Broadway, a torrid romance ensues.”

Aha, our first glimpse of plot. Before merging this line with the previous fragment, let’s see if we can’t remove any irrelevancies first. Immediately, “now aspiring for Broadway” is screaming to be cut. Unless Broadway is central to the plot, it is just taking space here. Sure, it may say something about her character, but not a part of her character we need to know about, yet. In the script, sure. But here? No.

Next, do we need to know she’s a high school crush, or is it enough to say that they are reunited. That single word implies that they previously were together, so we can dispense with another five words. Yippee! So now we are left with “When he’s reunited with Faith, a torrid romance ensures.” Doesn’t this say exactly the same as the previous, longer line?

Now to combine this with the earlier fragment.

“When Marcus, a painkiller addicted stand-up comedian, is reunited with Faith, a mysterious dancer, a torrid romance ensues.”

Now we have both characters and the catalyst for the plot in the opening line – much stronger. Sure, the parenthetical descriptions dull the flow, but we’ll come back to that. At least we now have a strong opening sentence instead of three whole lines. On to sentence four.

“He believes she’s going to be his savior.”

Immediately I’m struck by the fact that we are wasting words getting to the point again. The point here is in the last few words, but we need the preamble through “He believe’s she…”in order to reintroduce the character from the previous line. I wonder whether we can remove these words and fold the sentence into the previous line? Of course we can.

“When Marcus, a painkiller addicted stand-up comedian, is reunited with Faith, a mysterious dancer, a torrid romance ensues that could save him.”

Wow, now we’ve distilled four lines down into one. On to the next line.

“Just one problem -- she’s unknowingly embroiled in her father’s high-society known as Kama-Sin -- dealing in prostitution, human trafficking and murder.”

This is a very important line, as it reveals the major obstacle to our protagonist. But the name of the underworld society is irrelevant to me. Isn’t it enough to say her father was into some shady stuff?

“Just one problem -- she’s unknowingly embroiled in her father’s dealings in prostitution, human trafficking and murder.”

Next, the point of the sentence is the father, not Faith, so let’s make it about him.

“Just one problem -- her father deals in prostitution, human trafficking and murder.”

To me, following on from the previous line, we get the implication without having to state how it relates to our heroes.

You may be expecting me to cut out the three words “Just one problem…” But you’d be wrong. Those words provide a nice buffer between this line and the previous one, preparing the reader for a change in direction. Take the three words out and read the two lines back to yourself. I’m sure you’ll agree, the lines flow much better and the point is made much harder by leaving those three words in.

Now we’re up to the last line.

“Marcus' love for Faith lures him blindly into the bowel of Kama-Sin and ultimately into an abyss of pure evil where they make a daring and passionate attempt to save each other.”

Plenty we can cull here. As we removed Kama-Sin from the previous line, we can do the same here. Also, we’re repeating the character names again, wasting words every time we reintroduce them. Let’s find a more economical way of indicating this line refers to our protagonists. Finally, the theme of the film is stated here, but also the twist – instead of Faith saving him, he needs to save her. Let’s bring that out more.

“Their love draws them into an abyss of pure evil where their only salvation is each other.”

So now we have a new, shorter logline.

“When Marcus, a painkiller addicted stand-up comedian, is reunited with Faith, a mysterious dancer, a torrid romance ensues that could save him. Just one problem -- her father deals in prostitution, human trafficking and murder. Their love draws them into an abyss of pure evil where their only salvation is each other.”

From 102 words down to 52, while stating the theme stronger and staying focused on the essential plot details.

Yet, I want to cut more. There is still some fat on these bones and I want to see the leanest, sharpest logline possible. Are there other words we can cut without impacting on the overall message? You bet your sweet, shiny brads!

“When a drug addicted comedian is reunited with a mysterious dancer, a torrid romance ensues that could save him. Just one problem -- her father deals in prostitution, human trafficking and murder. Their love draws them into an abyss of pure evil where their only salvation is each other.”

After all, do we need to know the character names? In ‘Die Hard’, was it more important to mention that he was stuck in a hijacked skyscraper or that his name was John McCain?

Finally, we are left with the mystery of the mysterious dancer – it still annoys me. I’ve decided to switch this with the description we previously edited out. 

“When a drug addicted comedian is reunited with his high school crush, a torrid romance ensues that could save him. Just one problem -- her father deals in prostitution, human trafficking and murder. Their love draws them into an abyss of pure evil where their only salvation is each other.”

A round 50 words! With punch, theme, protagonists, an antagonist, obstacles and a tease to the direction it will move in.

By looking at your loglines in this way, you can hone a sharp, persuasive piece that cuts through the distracted and bored mind of the movie exec or industry reader and gets your message into their brain with the least amount of interference.

Would you approach the logline differently? Maybe you disagree with some of my choices. Let me know by posting a comment and all feedback will go back to Benjamin.

If you are interested in this article and would like me to write about, analyse and tune your own logline in a future post, please send your loglines to me at jonathan@jonathancrossfield.com.