Screenwriting : A conversation starter about loglines by Geoff Hall

PS I’m not looking for books to read or courses to take, I’d like to know about your experiences and best practices. Thanks.

It is not important/possible to cover everything from the script with a logline. If you want to combine multiple storylines and characters, focus on the core conflict. The conflict is key. For Snow White: 'When seven young entrepreneurs take in a mysterious femme fatale, they reopen their tight-knit community to life – and to dark pursuers.

Hi, Geoff Hall. Focus on the main plot in the series logline. You can focus on the other things in the episode loglines.

This sounds to me like a conceptual issue. There should be a hook. Lost wasn't really about surviving a plane crash on a mysterious island, but that was what made it compelling to check out. Even procedurals start with some kind of hook, such as the main protagonist being fundamentally up against some sort of antagonist force. X Files didn't just pose the question of if a lot of unexplained phenomena was alien/supernatural, but also the dynamic of two investigators who had completely juxtaposed perspectives.

I think there are some good suggestions here.

I would look at othere series with similar complexities and see how I might pitch them to a friend and use that as a template.

Lost is a good example, so is "Three Body Problem." How would you describe them to someone who knows nothing about the show?

I personally like to put as much clarity and detail as I can in my log lines. But I also want it to be succinct.

I start with describing as much detail as I would want any producer to know, and then look at how I might pare it down to the bar minimum.I tend to "accordian" that log line back and forth, word crafting, shortening, stretching, until I have a good balance between detail and length.

I hope that helps a little.

Maurice Vaughan hi Maurice, the problem there, is that the main plot has two couples working on the same plot but from different angles. Hmmh…

Maybe focus on the main couple in the series logline and mention the other couple in the synopsis and pitch, Geoff Hall.

So this is the X Files ‘overview’ (could we consider it a logline?) on IMDb:

“Two FBI Agents, Fox Mulder the believer and Dana Scully, the sceptic, investigate the strange and unexplained, while hidden forces work to impede their efforts.” - Save for the naming of the protagonists it would make a pretty good logline.

It doesn’t go into too much detail and doesn’t mention monster of the week, nor the mythological aspect of the series, but actually the ‘hidden forces’ aspect just about sums up the series.

And here’s the same thing from IMDb about the 3 Body Problem:

“A fateful decision made in 1960s China reverberates in the present, where a group of scientists partner with a detective to confront an existential planetary threat.” This focuses on the inciting incident and the response to it. Maybe that’s the trick?

You could summarize all your stories by naming their common theme: Characters A,B, and C interact with the theme of X in the world of Y.

Or do one short logline for each story and just pack them all in one paragraph.

Yep, like Mike says. Theme is the first that came to my mind. You describe your characters as one and treat your many threads, as a story world. Themes on two fronts with a goal and stakes.

Greetings I can do multi protagonist and antagonist story I have written a novel. So in my novel THERE ARE SO MANY MAIN CHARECTER AND IMORTANT ONEs .