Sell Your Story in Single Sentence
Page 13
Here is an unusual two-protagonist example, which I brought up earlier in this book. There are essentially dual protagonists here, because the girls are identical twins who affect the story 100 percent equally throughout. I also decided that it would be fun to keep the general “hot water,” because even though it’s not specific, it plays off of the “cold cases” they solve.
11. A counselor runs a camp for adults with marital problems, but is stuck repairing the marriage of a woman he’s in love with.
This is another example where the stakes are already built in, because it’s essentially a Romeo and Juliet logline. These two can’t be together because it’s his job to help the woman get back together with her husband—so it doesn’t matter that he’s in love with her. The two of them getting together would pose innumerable issues because of the situation itself.
12. An inventor’s daughter witnesses her father’s kidnapping and must employ his own inventions to rescue him from kidnappers determined to use his latest creation to destroy mankind.
This is a good example of establishing the protagonist (the inventor’s daughter), what she wants (to rescue her father), and what’s at stake (if she doesn’t succeed, the bad guys get to use his inventions for evil). The interesting thing is that the content creator thought the father was the protagonist initially, because he was the one who was kidnapped, but I showed him that the daughter makes all of the decisions from that point on. Her father’s kidnapping was what we call the “inciting incident:” just the initial event that sets everything in motion.
13. A socialite is stranded with a curmudgeonly backwoodsman during a snowstorm and must change herself into a decent person before he forces her to wait out the blizzard in the barn.
Normally, I would have immediately cut out the adjective “curmudgeonly,” but in this instance I left it in because I felt that otherwise the stakes weren’t high enough. I didn’t think you would ever believe that the woodsman would actually throw her out to spend the night with the animals if you didn’t first get a sense of what kind of person he was. I also changed “nice” to “decent,” because anyone can fake being nice but it’s much harder to actually become a decent human being. Once again, it raised the stakes.
14. A lawyer must become a detective when confidentiality prevents him from telling police about murders before they happen, which he thinks his client is committing.
In most cases, I’d immediately change “which he thinks his client is committing” to “which his client is committing,” because it has more power. However, I realized that it’s actually the uncertainty—the question of whether or not his client is doing the killings—that makes this story so intriguing. Because of that fact, I didn’t want to lose that neat morsel of doubt within the logline.
15. A mortician’s assistant questions her sanity when the dead start talking to her, but ultimately puts her life at risk to help the deceased fix injustices so they can rest in peace.
Originally, I cut out the beginning about the dead talking to her and just had the logline say that a mortician’s assistant put her life at risk to help the deceased fix injustices … but it suddenly seemed strange that she was helping the dead. How was she helping the dead if they were dead, right? Also, it was a bit confusing when there was no information about how she’d know the deceased had problems that needed to be rectified in the first place—so the first part ended up back in the logline. It’s one thing to cut words because the logline has a cost of ten dollars per word. It’s another to perplex your reader due to a lack of important information.
In the examples above, you can see the application of all we have learned throughout this book. While they may need a bit of further finessing, these loglines are tight, intriguing, and present all of the answers to the main questions of who the protagonist is, what they desire, and what is at stake if they don’t get what they want/need.
Now it’s time to see if you’ve really learned all this book had to teach you. You need to put into practice every bit of knowledge you’ve gained so that you can create loglines for your own work. In the next section I’ve included ten basic practice loglines to get you started as well as twenty more complex practice loglines to challenge you, along with separate answer pages. See how you do. Here’s the chance to really appreciate how much you’ve absorbed!
Workbook—Simple Loglines
Here are some simple loglines to begin with, to help you begin to apply all that you have learned in this book. As a jumping off point, see if you can decide what to cut in order to end up with a fairly decent logline.
1.George, an ambitious but misguided bartender, inherits his father Jamie’s rundown tavern just as the town bans alcohol, so he must set up a bootlegging ring to make money or die destitute.
2.Famous actor Justin Tate uses advice taken from all of his rom-com films in order to help an uber-fan named Henry find true love, but problems arise when he falls for the same girl, and both movie life and real life begin to blur.
3.John Jacobs is a lowly employee stuck on his company’s motivational camping trip, which is boring, but it suddenly turns into a life-and-death struggle when he discovers that his nasty boss, Kevin Carson, is actually a killer.
4.An aging 80-plus-year-old man discovers that his sickly wife truly believes the only way she can be happy with her impending demise is that she must take her husband with her into death, and so he must find a way to stop her before she succeeds in killing them both together.
5.A dragon, a troll, and a fairy are all fairy-tale creatures stuck in a magical land, and they decide that they must go on a quest to see what’s in the outside world, but find that their powers are useless out there and in fact they return changed into simple human beings, which makes them outcasts.
6.After her sweet single mother drowns, a high school senior girl becomes more determined than ever to become a swim team star in order to fight her inner demons.
7.A quantum physics professor accidentally triggers an explosion that sends him ten years into the past, but then it gets worse when he gets stuck there, and if he doesn’t find a way home he knows it will eventually affect time and erase his own existence.
8.Adeline, a retired old woman with 50 felines, is desperate to find homes for them all before she dies and her mean neighbor calls animal control, but her nasty neighbor ultimately surprises her and helps her and takes in the last cat that has to be placed.
9.A toy store employee locked in the store by accident attempts to rescue a kidnapped Santa Claus who has been taken by cruel, ruthless killers who want to have him save them from prison for Christmas.
10. An African journalist’s car breaks down while she is on the way to pursue the greatest story of her career—unfortunately, it’s at the only town for miles around, which turns out to be inhabited by cannibals.
Workbook—Simple Logline Answers
1.
ORIGINAL
George, an ambitious but misguided bartender, inherits his father Jamie’s rundown tavern just as the town bans alcohol, so he must set up a bootlegging ring to make money or die destitute.
REDO
A George, an ambitious but misguided bartender, inherits his father Jamie’s rundown tavern just as the town bans alcohol, so he must set up a bootlegging ring to make money or die destitute.
CLEAN
A bartender inherits his father’s rundown tavern just as the town bans alcohol, so he must set up a bootlegging ring or die destitute.
2.
ORIGINAL
Famous actor Justin Tate uses advice taken from all of his rom-com films in order to help an uber-fan named Henry find true love, but problems arise when he falls for the same girl, and both movie life and real life begin to blur.
REDO
A Famous actor Justin Tate uses advice taken from all of his rom-com films in order to help an uber-fan named Henry find true love, but problems arise when he falls for the same girl, and both movie life and real life begin to blur.
/> CLEAN
A famous actor uses advice from his films to help an uber-fan find love, but problems arise when he falls for the same girl.
3.
ORIGINAL
John Jacobs is a lowly employee stuck on his company’s motivational camping trip, which is boring, but it suddenly turns into a life-and-death struggle when he discovers that his nasty boss, Kevin Carson, is actually a killer.
REDO
John Jacobs is a lowly employee IS stuck on his company’s motivational camping trip, which is boring, but it suddenly turns into a life-and-death struggle when he discovers that his nasty boss, Kevin Carson, is actually a killer.
CLEAN
A lowly employee is stuck on his company’s camping trip, which turns into a life-and-death struggle when he discovers his boss is a killer.
4.
ORIGINAL
An aging 80-plus-year-old man discovers that his sickly wife truly believes the only way she can be happy with her impending demise is that she must take her husband with her into death, and so he must find a way to stop her before she succeeds in killing them both together.
REDO
An aging 80-plus-year-old man discovers that his sickly wife truly believes the only way she can be happy with her impending demise is that she must take her husband with her into death, and so he must find a way to stop her before she succeeds in killing them both together.
CLEAN
A man discovers his sickly wife believes she must take her husband with her into death, and so must find a way to stop her.
5.
ORIGINAL
A dragon, a troll, and a fairy are all fairy-tale creatures stuck in a magical land, and they decide that they must go on a quest to see what’s in the outside world, but find that their powers are useless out there and in fact they return changed into simple human beings, which makes them outcasts.
REDO
A dragon, a troll, and a fairy are all fairy-tale creatures stuck in a magical land, and they decide that they must go on a quest to see what’s in the outside world, but find that their powers are useless out there and in fact they return changed into simple human beings, which makes them outcasts.
CLEAN
Fairy-tale creatures decide they must see what’s in the outside world but return changed into simple human beings, which makes them outcasts.
6.
ORIGINAL
After her sweet single mother drowns, a high school senior girl becomes more determined than ever to become a swim team star in order to fight her inner demons.
REDO
After her sweet single mother drowns, a high school senior girl becomes more determined than ever to become a swim team star in order to fight her inner demons.
CLEAN
After her mother drowns, a girl becomes determined to become a swim star.
7.
ORIGINAL
A quantum physics professor accidentally triggers an explosion that sends him ten years into the past, but then it gets worse when he gets stuck there, and if he doesn’t find a way home he knows it will eventually affect time and erase his own existence.
REDO
A quantum physics professor accidentally triggers an explosion that sends himSELF ten years into the past, but then it gets worse when he gets stuck there, and if he doesn’t find a way home he knows it will eventually affect time and erase his own existence.
CLEAN
A professor accidentally sends himself into the past, and if he doesn’t find a way home it will eventually erase his existence.
8.
ORIGINAL
Adeline, a retired old woman with 50 felines, is desperate to find homes for them all before she dies and her mean neighbor calls animal control, but her nasty neighbor ultimately surprises her and helps her and takes in the last cat that has to be placed.
REDO
Adeline, a retired old woman with 50 felines, is desperate to find homes for them all before she dies and WHEN her mean neighbor calls animal control, but her nasty neighbor ultimately surprises her and helps her and takes in the last cat that has to be placed.
CLEAN
A woman with 50 felines is desperate to find homes for them before she dies when her nasty neighbor surprises her and takes in the last cat.
9.
ORIGINAL
A toy store employee locked in the store by accident attempts to rescue a kidnapped Santa Claus who has been taken by cruel, ruthless killers who want to have him save them from prison for Christmas.
REDO
A toy store employee locked in the store by accident attempts to rescue a kidnapped Santa Claus who has been taken by cruel, ruthless killers AND who want to have him save them from prison for Christmas.
CLEAN
A toy store employee attempts to rescue a kidnapped Santa and save Christmas.
10.
ORIGINAL
An African journalist’s car breaks down while she is on the way to pursue the greatest story of her career—unfortunately, it’s at the only town for miles around, which turns out to be inhabited by cannibals.
REDO
An African journalist’s car breaks down while she is on the way to pursue the greatest story of her career— unfortunately, it’s at the only town for miles around, which turns out to be inhabited by cannibals.
CLEAN
A journalist’s car breaks down at the only town inhabited by cannibals.
How did you do? Do you think you’re ready for a more difficult challenge? If so, I’ve compiled a list of more difficult loglines in the next section. Again, they are rough, needing further finessing, but they should still provide an adequate test for those of you who want to challenge yourselves a bit more.
Workbook—Complex Loglines
Here are some more complicated sample loglines to try out at home. These will end up as true rough drafts, loglines to be further refined with dynamic vocabulary and the like, but they will help you continue to learn the process.
1.Guided by conflicting motives, a queen and a peasant must venture on a quest to retrieve and recapture a magical bird that escaped from the czar’s menagerie. If they do not succeed, she’ll be forced to marry the first man who does capture the bird.
2.The Vietnam War turned some people into savages while others found their moral compass. When a US Navy officer who has a burning need to prove himself and a beautiful Indian woman who is collaborating with the Vietcong fall in love in grim 1964 Saigon, they are each forced to make decisions about who they are and what is important to them, and must defect or lose each other forever.
3.Framed through the lens of collegiate fraternity and sorority life, the story features two friends as they struggle to unearth their own identities and fall in love, ultimately succumbing to the reality that their deepest desires are no match for cruel twists of fate when they then find out that they are actually brother and sister.
4.Set in ancient Egypt, this is the story of a common Egyptian trying to hold his family together while facing the impending Hebrew exodus, and who ultimately discovers his true love and must save her life while receiving salvation as the plagues fall one by one from the mysterious hand of a God unknown.
5.Amanda Bixby begins to escape debilitating depression when she becomes a woman with an obsession with a serial killer, Gregory Hennes. Their intimate correspondence leads to a death-row wedding, after which Amanda begins to face the truth about Greg even while she puts her mental health at risk from his manic episodes.
6.In a creature-filled universe where Valkyries, werewolves, and ogres roam, a 13-year-old young human girl, mistaken for a sprite, struggles to survive long enough to find a way back to her own world.
7.After 50 years, a viper, Amelia Tooley, finally finds another one of her kind … who is determined to kill her and abduct her child, so Amelia determines that she must either save her child, whom she loves, or kill him before he can be used by the other viper to destroy the world.
8.An unlikely team of a private investigator and a maid must work together to uncover a clandestine plot and learn why the city’s ruling council is blocking their investigation, while at the same time stop those determined to unearth an ancient library that is filled only with unbelievably dangerous books on deadly black magic.
9.Thomas Bean, a young, naive, hopeful aspiring journalist who relocates to the US from London to follow his passion and put a painful past behind him, finds himself investigating a grisly murder, which puts him on the brink of a deadlier mystery on both sides of the Atlantic as he fights to expose an international crime ring, which involves trafficking in sterilized women, and puts his own life in extreme peril while doing so.
10. When the police rule three dead women as accidents, a lazy Hawaiian PI, Charlie Ho, teams up with an uptight female Boston journalist to track down a serial killer whose weapons of choice involve various uses for poisonous animals in order to immobilize his prey.
11. Dr. Jonathan Hartley’s past and present are on a rapid collision course, a battle transpiring within the forces of fate and destiny that haunt us all, as he navigates the unpredictable labyrinth of life-threatening illness while deciding whether or not to marry his fiancée.
12. When 16-year-old Amanda Williams earns a scholarship and fulfills a dream to study abroad in Spain, she leaves her life as a poor, friendless orphan behind but finds herself tangled in an inescapable world of dark magic as she fights becoming a demon.
13. Identical 15-year-old twin boys embark on a quest as they vow to swap 25 souls with the devil in exchange for the return of their grandfather, who has been abducted down to hell and stuck there by an evil curse of magic.
14. A true-story thriller that follows the life of FBI Agent Travers as he enters a world of mystery and intrigue in locations such as the Bahamas—as the clock winds down, Travers follows clues, while undercover, which take him on an amazing journey to stop an international diamond-smuggling operation and get out with his life.