Just Effing Entertain Me

Logline vs. Premise Line

shecanfilmit asks a good question, apropos of Premise Line Testing, and that is what is the difference between a logline and a premise line. I have seen and heard really disparate opinions of the definitions and differences between the two but here is how I personally define the two:

Logline: an after-the-fact, very short description of your script. It’s a very brief thumbnail, it ain’t poetic, it’s not really a big selling tool, it just nutshells the concept of your script very briefly.

Premise line: a tool for you, the writer, as you are developing your idea. Closer to two or even three sentences. Mentions the genre, main character, antagonist and crux of the conflict. When your script is done and your premise line is very sexy and defined, it actually can be a selling tool in a pitch meeting because it elaborates and articulates your story more than a log.

Premise Testing

The Wave-inatrix was lucky enough to spend the entire day with a Rouge Waver and dear friend who’d flown all the way to Los Angeles from Toronto to participate in the Venice Film Festival. What a fun filled day! As we lunched at the Daily Grill on Hollywood Blvd. at the Kodak Theater, I shared something with my friend that she instantly wanted to jot down on her napkin and that is something I have shared before on the Rouge Wave – the idea of asking some questions of your brand-new premise to make sure it’s sound. Kick the tires, in other words, before you get 38 pages in and start banging your head against the wall because your souffle is coming up flat.

Here is a worksheet I would recommend using for every premise you come up with. Simply fill it out in pencil and voila, watch the skeleton of your story come together.

Title:

Premise line:

Genre:

Hook:

Theme:

World (location/situation):

Main Character:
Wants/Needs
Flaw
Age/stage of life

Antagonist:
motivation/goals:

Set up or inciting incident:

1st act break event:

Midpoint reversal:

2nd act break event:

Ticking Clock:

Showdown or Climactic Scene:

How does this story fit into the current zeitgeist?

What age is the audience for this story idea?

What is universally resonant about this story?

Approximate Budget:

List Three Movies which are in ANY way similar:
When was each released?
What was the box office?

Pitch Before You Write

Usually when we think of pitching, we imagine that our amazing script is already either completely done or mostly done and that we are pitching it to a potential buyer. Rouge Wavers, take the concept of pitching, reinvent it and make it your own. In other words, pitch your script idea to yourself. Does the idea really make sense? Does it honestly sound like ninety-plus minutes of entertainment?

Pitching your story idea is a great way to find out if you’ve got a story worth telling – before you waste one-hundred twelve pages telling it.

Pitching your idea first in the mirror and then to trusted friends can help test the waters but it’s also a way for you to test yourself: can you articulate your idea pithily, including the points of focus usually included in a pitch? Can you articulate the Main Idea of your story?

Pitching and writing down your premise is a way of testing your idea for entertainment value and looking for holes or problems before you spend too much time actually writing the script.

The benefits of looking at it this way are numerous and obvious. Many writers (and I used to do this too) just sort of get whiff of the muse and start writing. And they’re really into it too; buckets of coffee and emergency chocolate are consumed, six consecutive days pass with no shower, the phone goes unanswered and the dog ate the cat. Then it’s time to get feedback on this piece of absolute perfection and the response is usually wha-?

When an executive is hearing a pitch these are some of the things he or she is listening for; things that will be encoded into your pitch, whether you did it consciously or not:

The Big (main) Idea
The commercial potential
The budget and genre
Casting ideas or inspiration

So put yourself in the exec’s shoes. You are a procurer of material. You have heavy-weights breathing down your neck, your last movie tanked, you’re paying ridiculous amounts of alimony and you have three meetings after your lunch meeting. Now you have about four minutes to hear a pitch. And you are thinking: Is the idea fresh? Does it have a great hook? Can I see the poster? Does it sound like a money-maker, star-vehicle or Oscar material? Is this worth setting up meetings for? Is this going to be the script that is going to rocket me into the next level of my career?

As a writer, you are aware, dear Rouge Wavers, that getting a Golden Idea out of your head and onto the page is a commitment of months. Who would knowingly write something that is going to die a painful death on somebody’s doorstep?

There are some preventative steps to keep ourselves in check so that our Golden Idea doesn’t run away with us only to leave us jilted and bewildered several months later. Developing your idea before committing to pages can save time, printer cartridges, buckets of coffee and the embittered feeling of futility and failure for which there is not yet a sufficiently ha-ha funny Hallmark card.

Write your idea down in the form of a one or two-sentence premise line. Limit yourself to 50 words. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to be pretty, this is just for you. Keep it simple.

Now ask that premise line –

What is the Big Idea?
Who is the main character?
Who is the antagonist?
What is the main crux of the conflict noted here?
Is the big climactic moment or choice here somewhere?
Is the genre clear?

Say you can answer all those questions to your satisfaction. Now ask yourself some more questions:

Is this a star vehicle?
Is this a Friday night movie or a Sunday matinee?
What is the theme of this story idea?
How does it fit into the zeitgeist two years from now?
Would this appeal to a wide audience?

At first, you might not be able to answer any of these questions to your satisfaction. That’s okay – this is the process. It’s called Idea Testing. Nobody is grading this, nobody even knows that you’re doing this with only one green sock on. The point is that writers who learn to develop habits and tools for testing their ideas before writing the script will develop a skill set and a discipline which will serve them very well down the line.

Loglines versus Premise lines

Writers often get confused about the difference between a logline and a premise line. The word logline gets bandied about so much that it’s become a bit of a catch-all.

In the Wave-inatrix’s view, a logline is the very short summary of the plot, usually only used on the top of coverage reports or as the shorthand for industry professionals.

A huge shark terrorizes a town.
A little boy can see dead people.
Tourists are kidnapped so their organs can be harvested
A young woman becomes a mule for Columbian drug dealers
A young man under house arrest sees crimes happening next door
An actor dresses as a woman, gets cast in a soap opera and becomes a star
An unlikely horse becomes a champion race horse and media darling

Loglines are brief encapsulations of the script. I have walked down the hall of production companies and had an exec pull me aside and say – hey, you know that script you just read, BLAM FRANCISCO? What was it about? And I have to cough up a quick sentence: A chemist’s experiment gets out of control and San Francisco is blown into the stratosphere.

Loglines are a tool to quickly describe a script but not necessarily to sell it or to be useful to the writer beyond that.

A premise line is a completely different animal and is primarily for the writer’s use, whether in developing the story or in selling it in a pitch or query letter. A premise line is generally a one or two-sentence description of the story with a beginning, middle and an end. It should definitely include the main character, the antagonist and the main source of conflict. If the premise is for selling purposes, end it with a cliff hanger. If it’s for you, the writer, you can be a bit more detailed. Sometimes writers will have many iterations of the same premise line:

One for development
One for a query letter
One for a competition application
One that will grow into a pitch.

The premise line initially is only for you, the writer. It can be as messy, disorganized, stupid and derivative as you like. At first. It is a tool; it is meant to be stretched and pinched and beat up. Jump up and down all over that thing. Prove to yourself that you really have a good idea.

Writing a good logline is pretty simple and the more you do it the easier it gets. Writing a good premise line for a query or pitch is an art form unto itself. It reminds me of haiku a little bit: write the most descriptive couple of sentences in the least amount of words. Choose words with the most “oomph”, words that really wring out of your premise the most exciting, dangerous, scary or romantic feelings you are trying to convey.

Many writers complain loudly about having to distill their idea or completed script into a premise line. How can they describe the script in so few words?!
Writing a good premise line is, in the Wave-inatrix’s opinion, really the test of your mettle as a writer. We are wordsmiths, after all; language is our business. We tell the best lies, we exaggerate about what happened at the party, we write fabulously entertaining emails and letters – so we can write a great premise line. Your sale might just hinge on it.

Let’s review:

A logline is a very brief summary.
A premise line is a tool for development and later, a tool for selling.

The Hook

One of the first things an agent, manager or executive will ask of your material is “what’s the hook”? You may have wondered what the heck that is. The definition seems to vary by person but the upshot is that the hook is something about the script that is centrally very simple, very cool and very original. There are many different types of hooks but here are some likely suspects:

Character hook: James Bond, Shrek, Austin Powers, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Bonnie & Clyde, Psycho, Batman, Annie Hall, Taxi Driver, Sexy Beast, Pulp Fiction, When Harry met Sally, Clueless. Think of this as the “you talkin’ to me?” category. Movies that carry a character hook are movies in which the central character is so unique that movie-goers remember that particular character for a long time, quoting him or her, etc.

Plot hook: The 6th Sense, Identity, Gattica, Jaws, Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain, Saw, Speed, Terminator, The Island, Jurrasic Park, The Ring, Purple Rose of Cairo, 28 Days. Think of this as the “I see dead people” category. Movies that have a plot hook are movies that have a central plot or plot twist that we have literally not seen before; a giant shark terrorizes a town, two gay cowboys have a love affair, a bus that will explode if it goes under 60mph, a video tape that if you watch, you’ll die 7 days later.

Cinematic and craft hooks: Memento, the Matrix, Crouching tiger, Jesus’ Son, Trainspotting, Sexy Beast, Pulp Fiction, The Ring, The 5th Dimension. Think of this as the “bullet time” category. These are movies that have a really unique look or narrative methodology that we have not seen before. A stylized look, CG effects, super-saturated footage, jumps in time; but more than simply a look or a narrative style, the execution is intrinsic to telling the story. It’s not frosting; it is a delivery system without which the story wouldn’t be the same.

…You’ll notice some titles appear under more than one category. True enough. If you can get your script to carry all three hooks? You are golden. But that’s hard to do. That said, writers should strive to come up with a hook, that I can tell you. Because having a hook is golden, my friends, it will move your script from the bottom to the top of the stack, it will get you meetings and it might even get you sold.

Don’t despair if you don’t feel as if your current script has a hook. Don’t shoehorn absurd hooks into your coming-of-age drama by making the main character a Siamese twin – just to be different. Let the hook come to you in an organic way. But remember this: coming-of-age, romcom, horror, thriller, fantasy – whatever the genre is, seriously every story has already been told. So how can you set your script apart? By lending to it your unique voice and by looking for creative opportunities to make a familiar story paradigm different enough in its details to provide unique entertainment. Audiences crave that which they are familiar with – there are genre expectations without which your movie will not succeed. It’s not always the what – it’s the how.

As you work through your idea, ask yourself: when an agent, manager or executive asks you what the hook is – what will you say? If right at the moment, the answer is a fish-eye stare, that’s okay. What opportunities lie within your story to create a unique hook? You may have to cast about for awhile to find something that really works but the rewards for you and for your script can be huge; fish or cut bait, Wavers. Aspire to create a hook that will net you one big, drooling executive – and a WGA membership card.