Logline

Meaning

A logline is a work summarized in one or two sentences. The word comes from Hollywood studios logging one-line script summaries in a ledger. The standard formula is "(a protagonist in a situation) must (goal) against (obstacle)", and it gets stronger with irony, a mismatch between who the protagonist is and what they must do. The first line of a synopsis, the first field on a contest form and the first sentence of a platform blurb are all loglines.

Why it matters

A logline tests whether a story is a sellable sentence. If the logline does not show who the protagonist is, what they want and what stops them, there is no story yet. It is also a compass for the writer: lost around episode 60, you return to the logline and ask what this scene has to do with the protagonist's goal. Judges, producers and readers see dozens of loglines a day. Without a concrete noun (a job, an object, a place) in the first ten words they move on. "A man searches for the truth" is not a logline; it is a blank.

Example

A weak logline and a revised one.

Weak: A woman digs into her grandmother's secret and finds herself.

Revised: A granddaughter who finds a bankbook in her own name, fed monthly for thirty years, among her grandmother's belongings follows the deposit locations across the country to find the depositor, and learns she is not her grandmother's granddaughter at all.

The revision has a concrete object (bankbook), a number (thirty years), an action (following deposit locations) and an obstacle that is also a twist (not related). Abstractions like "finds herself" are gone.

Common mistakes

• Filling it with abstractions. "Truth", "identity" and "destiny" do not belong in a logline. Replace them with objects and actions.
• Writing the theme. "A story that asks what family means" is a theme, not a logline. A logline is an event.
• No obstacle. A goal with nothing in its way has no conflict. Add a "but".