The November writers conference is looming. Last week, the organizers asked us to submit our manuscript’s first two pages with a logline in the header. Logline, I thought, triggering a chain of associations. Log jam. Writer’s block. Screwed!
Agent Jennifer De Chiara and super-helpful tweep defined it this way on today’s Twitter feed.
It’s just one compelling sentence that summarizes your manuscript in a way that will entice agents/editors to read it. Usually used to entice agents/editors when you’re ready to pitch your manuscript, I find that it’s helpful if you write it before you even start your manuscript. It will keep you focused on the essence of your book, what you’re trying to say. If you can’t summarize your manuscript in one sentence, then maybe your story isn’t focused enough. Who are the main characters? What do they want? What’s in their way? Make sure it has a hook – or themes to which all readers can relate. Look at the movie sections in magazines and newspapers and see how they describe a film; Look at movie posters. Practice writing loglines for famous books and movies, and you’ll get better and better at it.
Taking the advice to heart, here are several loglines from the movie section of MaineToday.com.
Secretariat. Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father’s Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge, and ultimately fosters what may be the greatest racehorse of all time.
Paranormal Activity 2. After experiencing what they think are a series of “break-ins”, a family sets up security cameras around their home, only to realize that the events unfolding before them are more sinister than they seem.
Hereafter. A drama centered on three people — a blue-collar American, a French journalist and a London school boy — who are touched by death in different ways.
Let Me In. Twelve-year old Owen is bullied by his classmates and neglected by his divorcing parents. Achingly lonely, Owen spends his days plotting revenge on his tormentors and his evenings spying on the other inhabitants of his apartment complex.
The Social Network explores the moment at which Facebook, the most revolutionary social phenomena of the new century, was invented — through the warring perspectives of the super-smart young men who each claimed to be there at its inception.
Case 39. A social worker tries to rescue a young girl from abusive parents but begins to suspect the girl may not be so innocent after all.
Red. Frank Moses, a former black-ops CIA agent, is now living a quiet life. That is, until his secret identity is compromised, putting his love interest in danger. Now, Frank must reassemble his old team to figure out who is out to get them.
My Soul to Take. Legend tells of a serial killer who swore he would return to murder the seven children born the night he died. Now, 16 years later, people are disappearing again. Has the psychopath been reincarnated as one of the seven teens, or did he survive the night he was left for dead?
Sooo… here’s my shot at it.
Shahida. A disgraced young mother is sent by her family to be married in Gaza. She joins a group of other women in dire straits, but what begins as a promise of freedom snares her in the underworld of female suicide bombers—where the veil of femininity hides an ultimatum that could keep her from her son forever.
Update 2.0: Or just, “A young unwed mother joins a group of other disgraced women in Gaza City, and what begins as a promise of relief pulls her deep into the world of female suicide bombers.”
Most of the loglines above are between 25 and 50 words; with some input from some helpful readers, and mine keeps getting shorter. Thanks! Anyone else see a place to trim? Thoughts in general? Would you read the book?
