Former winner: Blood Moon Trail
You’ve got one day left to send your loglines into April’s Logline Showdown. I want some stupendous loglines to choose from so don’t hesitate to submit. Here are the submission details…
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What: Title, Genre, Logline
Rules: Your script must be written
When: Send submissions by April 20th, Thursday, by 10PM pacific time
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com
Winner: Gets a review on the site
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Seeing as we have a big logline weekend ahead of us, let’s talk about the ten biggest logline mistakes and how we can avoid them. In order to provide everyone with some context for what constitutes a good logline, here are the three winning loglines from this year so far.
Blood Moon Trail
In 1867 Nebraska, a Pinkerton agent banished to a desolate post for an act of cowardice finds a chance at redemption when he decides to track down a brutal serial killer terrorizing the Western frontier.
Call of Judy
When a lonely kid gets lost in a next-gen VR gaming experience, the only person who can rescue him is his mom, who’s never played a videogame in her life.
Rosemary
A prolific serial killer struggles to suppress her desire to kill during a weekend-long engagement party hosted by her new fiance’s wealthy, obnoxious family.
Now that you understand what we’re aiming for, let’s discuss the TEN biggest logline mistakes.
NOT GIVING US THE MAIN CHARACTER RIGHT OFF THE BAT
The first thing a potential reader wants to know is, who’s leading me through this story? We are human beings so the first thing we connect with are other human beings. Therefore, unless there’s no other option, you should start off by introducing us to your main character. We see that in all three of the above winners, with a minor exception in Blood Moon Trail, which takes three words before we get to the main character. There are exceptions to this but, for the vast majority of loglines, you want to introduce your main character right away.
LITTLE-TO-NO SPECIFICITY
This is one I run into with Rom-Coms, Action-Thrillers, and Horror loglines, as these genres are the most susceptible to cliches. But it can happen with any genre. It boils down to the writer only using generic characters, adjectives, and locations, leaving the logline absent of anything that stands out. If you want to know what this looks like, here’s Blood Moon Trail’s logline, but rewritten without specificity: “Back in the Old West, a cowardly cop searches the frontier for an evil killer.” Notice the absence of all the specific words that made the logline pop: 1867, Nebraska, Pinkerton agent, brutal serial killer, Western frontier.
NO HOOK
This is more of a concept problem than a logline problem. To be clear, if you don’t have a good concept, it’s almost impossible to make your logline work. A hook just means a fresh and/or elevated component to your logline that feels bigger than the kinds of things that happen in everyday life. We don’t usually hear about cops chasing down serial killers in the Old West. That’s what makes Blood Moon Trail stand out. Call of Judy has a mom who’s never played video games have to save her son inside of a video game. To understand why that’s a hook, imagine the same idea but with a gamer friend trying to save our hero as opposed to the mom. All of a sudden it just becomes a flat boring idea. And then with Rosemary, we have a serial killer who’s trying *NOT* to kill. That’s a hook. A killer who’s doing the opposite of what’s expected of her.
IRRELEVANT DETAILS
The reason writers make this mistake is because they know their script so well that they’re unable to identify the things that might sound confusing inside a logline. Remember, some stuff needs the context of reading the whole script to understand. Whereas, if you included that stuff in the logline, it doesn’t organically fit with everything else you’ve told us. Here’s an example: “An aging ballet dancer with a keen interest in electronics is given the opportunity of a lifetime when she’s recruited by the prestigious Mariinsky Ballet Company.” What in the heck does having a keen interest in electronics have to do with this story?? Why would you include that in the logline? Maybe it *does* make sense in the context of the screenplay. But it doesn’t make sense in this abbreviated pitch of the story. Which is why you shouldn’t include it.
COMPETING ELEMENTS THAT DON’T ORGANICALLY CONNECT
I read a lot of loglines where the main elements don’t connect and, sometimes, even contrast with one another. Here’s an example: “A man with Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome, a rare condition wherein a person rapidly ages, learns that his father was a famous tomb raider and heads to Bolivia to seek out the treasure his dad died attempting to find.” What does the first half of the logline have to do with the second half? You’ve got two separate ideas here and you’re trying to cram them into the same movie. That RARELY works.
AN ENDING THAT SIMMERS OUT
This one always kills me. The writer will have this big catchy opening to his logline and pay zero attention to the logline’s climax, letting it die a slow quiet death. I’m talking about loglines like this: “A mountain climber who inadvertently disturbs a family of bloodthirsty sasquatches on Mount Kilimanjaro must rely on his smarts if he’s to escape the beasts and make it all the way down the mountain, a challenge that will test him both mentally and spiritually.” Notice how unevenly stacked this logline is. The first half is really exciting. The second half puts us to sleep. Always end the logline with a bang. All three of our winners did that.
THE OVERSTUFFED BURRITO LOGLINE
If you’ve ever been to Chipotle, you know what this one looks like. Those crazies try to cram everything into that burrito. Inexperienced writers do the same with their loglines. I understand their rationale. They want to make sure that all the relevant information is included so that reader knows absolutely EVERYTHING they’re going to get in the script. But that’s not how loglines work. Loglines only have space for the main character, the hook, and the central conflict. Generally speaking, try to stay under 30 words. 35 if you absolutely need those extra 5 words. Here’s what an overstuffed logline looks like: “A retired liberal political commentator must overcome her fear of the Bible Belt when she meets a conservative Alabama man online and moves in with him, but her fears are unfortunately realized when she must deal with his arrogant stepson, his weird paddle-ball obsessed neighbor, as well as overcome the church group who have declared her public enemy number 1 when she turns down their Sunday mass invitation.”
PROTAGONIST ADJECTIVE OVERLOAD
This is a small one but I see it a lot. It’s when writers go adjective crazy on their protagonist. They’ll include three, sometimes even four, adjectives to describe them. My advice when it comes to protagonist adjectives is to use one, two adjectives tops. And, keep in mind, a job title (accountant) or a label (serial killer) is an adjective. So instead of saying, “A young impressionable conflicted comedic actor,” you’d say, “A comedic actor.” I know it doesn’t tell the reader the whole story of who your protagonist is. But tough cookies. Loglines aren’t meant to tell the whole story. They’re the “poster” of your screenplay. They have to be succinct and to-the-point.
PLATITUDE FEVER
Here’s the definition for platitude: “A remark, statement, or phrase, that has been used too often to be interesting or thoughtful.” These are death for a logline yet writers use them all the time. And they make your logline both boring and empty. Funny enough, I asked ChatGPT to write me a platitude filled logline. This is what it came up with: “In a world where dreams are meant to be chased, and the only thing standing between success and failure is the courage to try, a plucky young underdog sets out on a journey of self-discovery and redemption.” “In a world.” “Where dreams are meant to be chased.” “The only thing standing between success and failure.” These are platitude phrases and mean nothing. Sometimes, you can use a single platitude to bridge relevant parts of your logline. But I would avoid them if you can. They somehow make everything sound like nothing.
CLUNKY PHRASING
“Clunky” boils down to using too many words and phrasing them incorrectly. It’s something that can be fixed by simplifying. Here’s the Rosemary logline, but written by a writer with clunky phrasing: “Trying to suppress her desire to kill, for which she is obsessive, a prolific and eccentric serial killer attempts to suppress her usual desire for bloodletting while experiencing a weekend-long engagement party that is being held for the richest of the rich.”
NOW GET THOSE LOGLINES IN BY 10PM PACIFIC TIME TONIGHT! (THURSDAY)
Need logline help? I’m here for you! Logline consults are just $25 for basic (analysis, rating, and logline rewrite) and $50 for deluxe (same as basic plus you get unlimited e-mails until we get the logline perfect). E-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com with the subject line: LOGLINE CONSULT.
