The logline exercise: ten loglines for one idea

Your first logline for an idea usually describes a situation. By the tenth, you're describing a story. The ten-loglines drill is simple: take one idea, write it as ten different one-sentence stories, then keep one and say why it won.

This post covers where the drill comes from, what a logline has to contain, how to run the exercise in about 45 minutes, and a worked example with all ten versions. It also covers the mistakes teachers and script readers flag, each with a before and after.

Where the drill comes from

Loglines show up early in classrooms under different names and numbers. The UCLA version below spells out the full shape: write several, compare them, commit to one.

• A published UCLA sample syllabus for its summer TV writing institute (FTV 131A, Introduction to TV Writing) makes it the first homework: "Write 10 different one-sentence log lines. Each contains a central conflict. Focus on the genre and tone of each logline." The next class reads them and has each student "Choose one to focus on."
• An earlier UCLA TV writing track syllabus opens with a logline for "the story of your life" plus two loglines for series you might develop. Every one of them "must include the word 'BUT'."
• A Yale Summer Session screenwriting syllabus sets "Loglines (produced and original)" after the first class, and the second class opens with "Pitch loglines."
• A TCNJ writing for film and television course outline asks for two feature loglines, each with title and genre, both on one page.
• The Save the Cat! site says its online beat sheet workshops start Week 1 on loglines for the ideas students are thinking about writing.
• Syd Field wrote that people came into his workshops with "a short, three-sentence idea of their story". The first class talked about "the action and character" behind it, and the first assignment was to structure the idea and then write a four-page treatment.

Why ten rather than one? A single logline turns into something you defend. Ten turn into something you choose from. The UCLA wording also tells you what to vary: genre and tone, with a central conflict in every one.

What a logline has to contain

The definitions differ in wording and mostly agree on the parts.

Treat these as a checklist, not as a formula that every logline has to fill. In a John August post, a reader marked up 101 well-known loglines against the "When (inciting incident), (hero) struggles against (antagonistic force) in order to (goal) before (stakes are lost)" template. Every one named a hero. 86% had an inciting incident, 81% an antagonistic force, 66% a goal and 19% stakes. Only about 6% hit all five. Most strong loglines carry three or four of the parts and leave the rest implied.

How long should it be? There isn't one rule, but the published limits are all short. BBC Writersroom's pilot application form asks for "one or two sentences" with a maximum of 400 characters including spaces. Bang2write puts a good logline at 25–60 words. The UCLA drill asks for one sentence. For practice, aim for 20–35 words and one sentence. The limit is useful because it forces you to leave things out.

How to run the drill (about 45 minutes)

Warm-up, 10 minutes. Borrowing the Yale "produced and original" pairing, write one-sentence loglines, in your own words, for three films you know well. Then check each against the table above. It's easier to see what's missing in a story you already know.

The ten, 25 minutes. Take your idea and write ten versions without stopping to judge them. Make each one differ from the last in one real way. These are the levers:

1. Whose story it is. Tell it from the person on the other side, or from someone minor.
2. What they want. Make the goal concrete and hard to reach.
3. What's in the way. Is it a person, an institution, a deadline or the hero's own flaw?
4. Genre. Try the same idea as a comedy, a thriller and a drama.
5. Tone. Make it warmer, colder, sillier or more serious.
6. Irony. Give the job to the person least suited to it.
7. The clock. What happens if they don't manage it by a certain time?
8. The world. Move the setting or the period, or shrink the scale.
9. The ending. Say where it lands.
10. The format. Could it keep going as a series? What happens again every week?

If the idea is still a blur, start the first few with "What if…". Then rewrite each one as a statement with a person in it.

The cut, 10 minutes. Read all ten aloud. Cross out any that don't name a person, a goal and an obstacle. Circle three. Pick one and write one line on why it beat the other two.

The box below opens a free practice project in ScripTao: there's no sign-up, and your ten versions stay in your browser.

What to hand in: ten one-sentence loglines, the winner marked, and one line on why. If you're working to a class brief, add a title and genre to the winner, as the TCNJ outline asks.

A worked example: one idea, ten loglines

The idea: a woman inherits her late father's driving school in the seaside town she left. Here's a run through the levers, with the word count and a note on each version.

The pick: number 5, as written:

An accountant who hasn't driven since the crash she caused at seventeen must teach the town's learners herself to keep her late father's driving school open.

Why it won: it's the only version where the goal attacks the hero's weak spot, so every lesson becomes a scene. Numbers 7 and 10 stay on the list as separate projects.

The losing versions were still useful. Number 4 gives the story its best supporting character, and number 9 suggests where the climax happens. Keep all ten.

Common logline mistakes, with fixes

Each "before" below is a new example written for this post, and each mistake is one that the linked teacher or reader describes.

1. Stopping at the set-up. Save the Cat!'s Naomi Beaty calls the "goes after it against great odds" part the most often overlooked, because it describes Act 2.

• Before: A shy beekeeper is elected mayor of her village by mistake.
• After: Elected mayor of her village by a counting error, a shy beekeeper has one term to stop the council selling the common land her hives depend on, and she can't speak in public.

2. A goal that takes a second. The same post warns about loglines that hinge on "decide," "choose" or "realize." ScriptMag's list of crucial mistakes flags "discover" and "come to terms with." Both are internal events. A logline should describe what the audience will see.

• Before: A retired boxer must come to terms with his estranged son.
• After: A retired boxer agrees to train his estranged son for a title fight he knows the boy will lose.

3. Ending on a question. Both ScriptMag and Bang2write name this one. The answer to "Will she survive?" is nearly always yes, or there's no story.

• Before: Two sisters are trapped in a flooded mine. Will they make it out?
• After: Trapped in a flooding mine, two sisters who haven't spoken in years must dig through to the old seam their father sealed, the one he died hiding.

4. Too much at once. Beaty calls detail overload the primary challenge, and ScriptMag warns against "a dozen half-baked ideas." Pick one engine per sentence. If two loglines both excite you, they're probably two stories.

5. Nothing unexpected. ScriptMag's first mistake is "no irony": the expert doing the job they were hired for. A professional mountain guide who guides a mountain climb is just a job. A mountain guide with vertigo doing the same climb is a story.

6. Clichés instead of events. Bang2write names phrases such as "confront past demons" and "lives are shattered," which could describe almost anything. Swap each one for the specific thing that happens.

7. A tagline instead of a logline. A tagline is poster copy. BBC Writersroom says to avoid using one unless it somehow summarises the story. Film London uses Alien as its example: "In space, no one can hear you scream" is the poster line, and "Jaws in space" is the logline.

8. The wrong tone. The BBC post points out that without the word "sitcom," the listing for Mum could read as a drama. If your script is a comedy, the sentence should sound like one.

The TV version: loglines for a pilot

In the UCLA FTV 131A sample, the drill comes first: the ten loglines are due before anything else. After the class chooses one, the next assignments are a "1:3:3 exercise," which the instructor explains in class, and then two possible A and B stories to pitch.

A series logline has one more job than a film logline: it has to show what happens again every week. The BBC glossary defines a logline as a summary of "your script or TV series." One practical way to write it: make the pilot's inciting event the sentence's main action, and let the series engine ride along in the last clause. That's what number 10 in the worked example does. A Loyola University Chicago syllabus asks for the same thing in a web-series pitch document: a 1–2 sentence logline alongside "the conflicts that drive the story and the show's franchise." For the rest of the pilot process, see TV writing exercises.

A counterweight worth reading

Not everyone thinks loglines matter. John August wrote a logline for every script he covered as a paid reader, then never wrote another as a professional screenwriter. He calls loglines "arrows pointing towards story." That's the right way to use this drill: it's a test of the idea, not the work itself. Philip Shelley, who reads submissions to the Channel 4 screenwriting course, says the logline is also a touchstone you keep checking back on as the story develops.

What to do with the winner

Put the logline at the top of every document that comes next. Then build the protagonist it names with the want, need and wound exercise, and turn it into a sequence of events with step outlines and reverse outlines. Rewrite the logline whenever the story changes. For the full sequence of exercises schools set, start with the screenwriting exercises film schools actually assign.

FAQ

What is a logline exercise?

It's any drill where you write your story as a one-sentence logline, usually several versions, and test them against what a logline needs. The version in this post comes from a published UCLA TV syllabus: ten one-sentence loglines, each with a central conflict, then choose one to develop.

How long should a logline be?

One sentence, sometimes two. BBC Writersroom's pilot application caps it at 400 characters including spaces, and Bang2write suggests 25–60 words. For practice, 20–35 words forces the useful choices.

What are common logline mistakes?

Stopping at the set-up, goals that happen in a moment ("decides," "comes to terms with"), ending on a question, too many ideas at once, no irony, clichés instead of events, a tagline in place of a logline, and a tone that doesn't match the script.

What is the difference between a logline and a tagline?

A logline tells a reader what the story is: who, what they want and what's in the way. A tagline is marketing copy for a poster. "In space, no one can hear you scream" is a tagline.

What is an example of a good logline?

From the worked example above: An accountant who hasn't driven since the crash she caused at seventeen must teach the town's learners herself to keep her late father's driving school open. It names a hero, gives her a goal and an obstacle inside herself, and builds irony into the job.

Should a TV pilot logline describe the pilot or the series?

Both, if you can. Lead with the pilot's inciting event, then show the engine that keeps producing episodes. The BBC glossary defines a logline as a summary of "your script or TV series."

What is the difference between a logline and a premise?

People use the words loosely. John Truby talks about a "premise line" and says to look in it for "the desire line and the opposition," which is also what a strong logline shows. You can treat the premise as the idea and the logline as the sentence that pitches it.

What is the 3-line rule in screenwriting?

It isn't about loglines. It's a convention that action paragraphs shouldn't run past about three lines. The Go Into The Story blog calls it a so-called rule: readers expect short paragraphs, but no official rule says how long one must be.