Okay, class. Who needs more time to work on their script?
I’ve had a lot of goings-on with loglines over the past couple of days, which prompted me to re-post this gem from a little over 2 years ago.
Enjoy.
“Scenario: You’re at a social function, engaged in idle chit-chat. The topic of you being a screenwriter comes up.
“What’s your story about?” they will undoubtedly ask.
The chance you’ve been waiting for! What do you say?
You want to pique their curiosity, and not bore them.
In the simplest of terms: provide a quick summary of the main characters(s) and what happens in the main storyline.
Avoid too much information, non-essential characters, intricate subplots, how it’s a metaphor for this totally different other thing, or generic phrases like “and learns about themselves” or “stumbles into a world she wasn’t prepared for” or the ever-dreaded “wackiness ensues.”
What are the components of an effective logline? Just the following:
1. A protagonist with a flaw.
2. An antagonist with a goal.
3. The situation that pits them against each other
4. What’s at stake/what happens if the protagonist fails?
That’s pretty much it. Keep it simple. Nothing too specific or generic.
Make sure you emphasize the genre. If it’s a comedy, play up the comedic angle. A thriller, go for the suspense. That sort of thing.
And most importantly, make it sound interesting. This is your best chance to grab their attention, so make the most of it (and make sure the script is just as good).”
-3rd half-marathon of the year this weekend. Training’s been more sporadic than I would have liked, so hoping to break 1:55, but will settle for under 2 hours.
I was THIS CLOSE to being done with the latest version of the outline for the pulpy adventure spec when my writer’s sense starting tingling.
“Something’s still not right!” screamed out my internal editor.
What? That couldn’t be possible, could it? I’d spent the past few weeks being oh-so-meticulous in reorganizing sequences, working out subplots and connecting story points. How in the names of Walter Gibson and Lester Dent could there be a problem?
I looked at the outline with a more critical eye.
Opening sequence – check.
Intro of hero, establish his world – check.
Hero’s world drastically changes while raising central question of the story – check.
Complications ensue – check.
Midpoint where hero becomes fully committed to achieving his goal (accompanied by reminder of the central question) – check.
Wait. Back that up a little. To right between the “Complications” and “Midpoint” parts.
Hokey smokes, there it was. Cue the flashing red light bulb (with optional klaxon).
Two consecutive sequences just way too similar to each other. This is what’s been bothering me.
No doubt about it. One of ’em has to go. Probably the first one. You’d think it would be no big deal to just go in and change it.
And you’d be kinda/sorta wrong.
The events that happen during these two sequences are vital to the story, so the outcome needs to stay the same. The tough part now is figuring out how to change the “what happens” in that first one so not only is it unique enough unto itself, but also falls neatly into the overall structure of the story.
As always, a daunting task. For now. But potentially solvable given some time and exploration of possible alternatives.
I cannot stress enough the importance of why you should outline your story before even considering starting on pages, and being extremely thorough about it while you do. This is where you get all the heavy lifting done by figuring everything out. Where it’s a lot easier to identify the cracks in the foundation. Where it might take you a few passes to realize what works and what doesn’t.
Then again, this is how I do it, so your approach may be totally different. But speaking for myself, I prefer to go back in and fine-tune a couple of scene descriptions consisting of one to two sentences, rather than labor my way through several pages, then have to totally junk them because they’re not working.
So my focus for the time being is fixing this, then going through the whole outline a few more times, making adjustments where necessary, until I think it’s done/ready for conversion into pages.
-Got to see JURASSIC WORLD and INSIDE OUT last week. Both very enjoyable, but for very different reasons. Of the two, I’m more interested in seeing INSIDE OUT again, mostly for the writing and storytelling aspects.
Regrettably, still haven’t seen MAD MAX: FURY ROAD yet. Of all the summer releases, this feels like the one that must be seen on the big screen. Will do what I can to rectify that.
Allowing myself the luxury of a 5-minute nap between projects
What an exhausting week this has been.
-My “Ask a Script Reader/Consultant” series is going strong, with no signs of letting up. What I originally planned as a handful of interviews is now poised to run until at least the end of the year, possibly into January. There are a lot of quality readers and consultants to choose from out there, all of whom really know their stuff. If you think your script is good enough as it is right now, you should seriously consider getting some professional feedback from any of these folks to help make it even better.
-Had a great face-to-face meeting with another writer in which we talked shop, exchanged feedback on each other’s scripts and just had a nice time. It’s one thing to connect with somebody on social media or an online forum, but when you factor in the human element, it just makes it that much more a pleasurable experience.
-The feedback this writer gave me was about my western. He used to do coverage, so his notes were significantly better than mine. He had some very nice things to say about the script, and some great suggestions about how to improve it. Luckily for me, a lot of them were relatively easy fixes.
Working with these notes, I just completed a major edit, which resulted in shortening it by 4 pages to 122. That’s 4 pages less than the previous draft, and 10 pages less than the draft that went out to all those contests earlier this year. There will be at least 1-2 more edits, in which I’m hoping to cut even more.
-Because of all this other stuff, progress on the low-budget comedy has slowed a bit. The latest obstacle is the fleshing out of some of the subplots. While the main storyline is kinda/sorta solid, it’s those supporting ones that still need some work.
The next step may be focusing on developing each one subplot individually, then work out how it connects/relates to the others. This puzzle keeps getting more complicated all the time. I was hoping to have a first draft done by the end of the year, which is still possible, but it’s more important to me to have a nice, solid outline first.
-Got some great notes from a few people about the mystery-comedy. Still needs work, but just about everybody raved about its potential and how much they like the concept, which is always nice to hear.
-Looking for help with loglines? Check out this book from Doug King.
-A friend gave K some Meyer lemons, which naturally resulted in making a lemon meringue pie. I considered sharing some with my co-workers, but decided it was just too tasty to leave the house. When your child asks if the last piece can be saved so it can be part of her breakfast the next day, you must be doing something right.
-I haven’t been able to do any half-marathons since last year, but we got a dog a few months ago, so 2-3 times a week, I run the 3 miles to pick her up, then both of us do the run back. Doing these along with my occasional longer weekend runs has resulted in about 10 pounds dropped since Labor Day. Hoping to get back into doing some races next year, but the dog stays home.
-Oh, and there was this. 5 years in the making and no sign of letting up. Thanks for all the support, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride as much as I have.
If you’re new around here, welcome! Feel free to take a look around, ask questions, comment on something, what have you.
“You’d have turned down Gone With The Wind.” “No, that was me. I said, “Who wants to see a Civil War picture?””
It’s still an uphill climb with a few gaps here and there, but the overall story for the low-budget comedy is coming together.
I’m making a point of not rushing through it and being extra careful – almost to the point of meticulous – about how all the pieces interconnect. The more I work on it, the more the phrase “French farce” comes to mind, so lots of interweaving storylines, the intersecting of character paths, and the ramifications of each character’s actions on the others. At least that’s my interpretation.
A challenge, to say the least, but it’s been a fun ride so far.
A last-minute surprise factor was this response to the logline on an online forum: “It’s so straightforward now it’s hard to believe you could sustain interest through 100 pages.”
I’d like to thank that person for throwing down the gauntlet in making me work even harder than I already was. Never underestimate the motivational power of “Oh yeah? Just you wait and see what I can do.”
But back to the bigger issue. Statements like these always make me wonder about the person who says/writes them.
I never cared for the “I don’t see how this could be a story” line of reasoning. That tells me you lack vision and creativity. Just because you think it won’t work doesn’t mean it won’t. Nobody thought GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY would do well and look what happened.
Side note – My western received a handful of reader responses along the lines of “This isn’t factually or historically accurate, so I just couldn’t get into it.” They’re entitled to their opinions, but I feel bad about their inability to just sit back and enjoy an old-fashioned ripping yarn. Although one person was gracious enough to admit at the end of their comments “It would be better if you just ignore everything I’ve just said.” Consider it done.
Always remember the sage advice of William Goldman: Nobody knows anything.
I’m all for encouraging other writers. If your idea interests or excites me, I’ll tell you. If it doesn’t, I’ll explain why not and make suggestions of potential fixes. The last thing I want to do is discourage you or give you a lecture, and you sure as hell don’t want to hear one.
My criteria is pretty simple: If I read somebody’s logline or hear their story pitch and can instantly imagine the potential within that story, and more importantly, if it sounds like something I would want to see, then they’ve succeeded and gotten over the first hurdle.
Of course, having the actual script live up to or possibly even surpass expectations is another thing.
Details about the low-budget comedy have been kept under wraps because I wanted to develop the story some more before pitching it to my final-say editor. If she liked it, then it’s good to go.
She did. Quite enthusiastically.
So now it’s all about coming up with potential scenes and sequences, then reorganizing them to tell the story in the best and funniest ways possible.
I’ve gone back and forth about how much information to disclose, but realize it would be better to at least offer up some minimal details.
So here it is.
Working title: An Angel Walks Into A Bar…
“After literally dying onstage, a caustic comedian’s only shot at afterlife redemption is to fix three of the many lives he’s ruined.”
This stems from the “What if…?” question of “What if a Don Rickles-like comedian was your guardian angel?”
I like the concept, think it’s pretty original and see lots of potential within the story. I’ve got a primary storyline and three subplots, all of which are inter-connected. It’s a bit of a challenge to put together, but that’s part of the appeal.
Just to test the waters, I posted the logline on a few online forums. Comments ranged from “Sounds fantastic!” to “Who are these three people? Why them?” Some read like they’re ticking items off a Screenwriting 101 checklist (“You don’t have ____, so it’s no good.”)
The one that really threw me was the claim that you could replace “comedian” with another occupation and it would still be the same story. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but I heartily disagree. A proctologist, maybe, but not much else.
It all comes down to either you like the logline and it makes you want to see the movie, or you don’t and it doesn’t.
Honestly, I really need to stop posting on these forums. I’ve got a pretty solid network of trusted writer colleagues with more experience and whose opinions I put more value in than the anonymous members of the internet community.
So it looks like I’ll be keeping busy for the time being with this and the rewrites of the western and the mystery-comedy.
Maximum Z 