By Christopher Lockhart
A LOGLINE IS….
A logline conveys the dramatic story of a screenplay in the most abbreviated manner possible. It presents the major throughline of the dramatic narrative without character intricacies and sub-plots. It is the story boiled down to its base. A good logline is one sentence. More complicated screenplays may need a two sentence logline. There are available templates to assist writers, but theses aids often leave the logline sounding pedagogical rather than dramatic and slick. A writer must learn the elements of how to construct a logline.
As simple as this seems, it can be difficult for a writer to extract the center of his story to create a logline. A writer bonds to all aspects of her narrative, and bias can prevent the scribe from isolating which story elements are crucial for logline presentation and which elements can be temporarily brushed aside. Crafting a logline takes a great deal of practice and an understanding of basic dramatic structure. Often, the writer must exhaust all possibilities in order to devise the perfect logline.
A logline must present:
who the story is about (protagonist)
what he strives for (goal)
what stands in his way (antagonistic force).
Sometimes a logline must include a brief set-up. A logline does not tell the entire story. It merely uses these three (sometimes four) major story elements to depict the dramatic narrative in an orderly and lucid manner. For instance, a logline for THE WIZARD OF OZ may read:
After a twister transports a lonely Kansas farm girl to a magical land, she sets out on a dangerous journey to find a wizard with the power to send her home.
