Write a Logline a Producer Can Picture in One Line
Before anyone reads your script, they read one sentence about it.
That sentence is your logline. If it works, someone asks for the script. If it doesn't, the script stays on your laptop, however good it is.
In advertising, we had a rule for this. If the client can't see the ad when you describe it in one line, the idea isn't ready yet. Loglines work the same way. A producer should be able to picture your film before you finish speaking.
Here's how to get there.
What a logline actually is
A logline is not a summary of your story. It's not a tagline either.
It's one sentence that answers four questions: who is this about, what do they want, what stands in the way, and what will we see on screen?
Most first loglines answer only the first one. "A young man from a small town dreams of becoming a cricketer." We know who. We don't know what stops him, and we can't see a single scene.
The four-part checklist
Read your logline against these four. Every part should be there.
1. One lead. Not "a family", not "three friends". One person we follow. If your story has an ensemble, pick the character whose choice drives the ending.
2. One clear want. Something the audience can check off by the end. "To be happy" can't be checked. "To win the district tournament" can.
3. One real obstacle. A person, a rule or a deadline. "Society" is not an obstacle on screen. "His father, who has already sold the family's only land to pay for his sister's wedding" is.
4. One image. The detail that makes the producer see it. A place, an object, a job. This is the part most writers leave out, and it's the part that sells.
Five before-and-after rewrites
These are invented examples, the kind I see from writers every week.
Before: A girl fights for her dreams against all odds. After: A bus conductor's daughter in Jabalpur secretly trains for the state boxing trials, while her father drives the route past the stadium every single day.
The after version gives us a job, a city, a secret and a daily risk of being caught. We can already see the bus.
Before: A man seeks revenge for his past. After: Twenty years after a fire burned down his family's printing press, a quiet proofreader recognises the arsonist's name on a wedding card he's been paid to print.
The wound now has a picture: a printing press. The plot starts with an ordinary object. (I wrote about building a hero around one image in the Zanjeer piece.)
Before: A story about friendship and growing up. After: Two boys in Kota who share one room and one cycle have six weeks to decide which of them gets the coaching seat their village has paid for.
"Friendship" became a deadline and a choice. That's a story.
Before: A horror story set in an old house. After: A newly married woman moves into her husband's haveli and finds that every clock in the house has stopped at the time of her wedding.
One image, the stopped clocks, does all the work.
Before: A comedy about a dysfunctional family. After: When a retired schoolteacher announces he is remarrying at 72, his three grown children have one week to find out who the bride is before the shaadi card goes to print.
Comedy needs a ticking clock as much as a thriller does.
How long should it be?
One sentence. Two at the most, if the second one is short.
If you need a third, you're explaining the story instead of selling it. Cut the backstory. Cut the theme. Keep the person, the want, the obstacle and the picture.
Say it out loud
Here's a test I give every student. Read your logline to someone who doesn't write, a cousin or a friend at chai. Then ask them to tell it back to you.
If they repeat it almost word for word, it works. If they say "so it's about a girl who... something about boxing?", the image isn't strong enough yet.
Aapki kahani unke dimaag mein chalni chahiye, not just in yours.
Try this
Take your current logline and check it against the four parts: one lead, one want, one obstacle, one image.
Circle the part that's weakest. Rewrite only that part three different ways. Pick the version a stranger could picture.
Then write it on a card and keep it above your desk while you write the script. When a scene doesn't serve that sentence, you'll know.
Writing a logline is one of the first things we do in The Foundation of Storytelling, my live online course in Hindi and English.
Want me to look at your logline? Send it to me on WhatsApp. I read every one.
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