Story Farm Sessions - Testing Your Logline

Hi folks!

I’m continuing the Sessions with further emphasis on writing a great logline, but more specifically…testing the one(s) you already have. These are great reminders for creating something that is so essential in the development process AND the marketing process. A logline is everything, at least in terms of getting someone’s attention. It’s the launch point for gaining interest. So let’s dive in.

First, I want to remind you that I have two big programs starting soon.

The Pro Screenwriting Lab starts September 5. 12 weeks of group workshops helping you build and develop your next project, plus four evaluations and sets of notes on your pages and rewrites.

The 45-Day Screenwriting Sprint starts October 5. A more in-depth version of my 30-Day Screenwriting Challenge that I used to host for the ISA, but now it includes rewrite exercises. It’s $69 now, but it will go up to $79 as of September 1.

Last email: we broke down the four things a working logline has to prove - a flawed person, genre and tone, a unique hook, and a recurring moment - and looked at how Jaws and Groundhog Day build that recurring moment from opposite directions. How about we go a bit further?

Before we run this so-called test, here’s the checklist in its simplest form. A working logline proves:

1. A flawed person - not just a goal, but something broken in them emotionally

2. Genre and tone - word choice! You should know what kind of experience this is in one read.

3. A unique hook - the specific thing that makes this story unlike similar projects in the genre

4. A recurring moment - the situation your second act keeps returning to

There’s a piece of test #4 that trips up almost everyone, so let’s talk about it before we diagnose anything: a recurring moment isn’t just a situation the character is in. It’s a situation that hands them a pursuit - something specific they now have to actively go after, or actively survive, again and again. “She’s in a strange town” is a situation. It is not a pursuit. Nothing is being chased, protected, solved, escaped, or fought for. A situation without a pursuit is scenery. The character has to want something inside that situation, or there’s no engine or implied stakes. It’s just a backdrop.

There is a difference between a place your character stands in and a story your character is trapped inside of. Really think about that for a second, and keep that distinction in mind as we keep going here.

Now let’s looks at one that isn’t working yet.

Story Farm Sessions will be available only to paid subscribers, but think of it this way: for roughly $7/month you’ll get just about everything you need to build and tell your story step-by-step PLUS access to all of my past Substack articles. I want my Story Farm Substack to become the go-to for writers wanting to learn and grow. You can click that button below to subscribe. And heck, if I’m not delivering on what you want, you can always cancel.