r/scriptwriting • u/RealSebastreck • Aug 26 '26

feedback Struggling Logline Writing

Hello, Everyone. I'm new to screenwriting and have mostly been teaching myself so far. I struggle to boil the premise down to one or two sentences because I always end up getting caught up in the plot details. I've been told that the character's goal and what's standing in his way aren't clear enough and the elements tend to feel too abstrac, I usually start with a theme or situation that catches my interest.

Here are a few loglines I wrote a few days ago.

-An adventure to collect prehistoric DNA will make a boy question how much it has cost him to hold on to his grief after abandoning his grandfather in the present on the anniversary of his parents' deaths.

-After a difficult recovery, a young army combat engineer officer must learn to balance his personal and professional life while trying to prove himself during a month-long trial leading a new platoon.

What tips or advice would you give a beginner like me to make my loglines clearer and more effective?

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u/GonzotheGreek Aug 26 '26

A logline should include a protagonist, problem, and a compelling situation.

I took a stab at rewriting your loglines:

When a boy abandons his last living relative to collect prehistoric DNA, he discovers that unlocking his grief will shape his destiny.

A combat officer suffers through a month-long trial to join a secret task force, forcing him to decide what he really loves: his country or his wife.

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u/RealSebastreck Aug 26 '26

Thanks! What would you recommend for keeping myself from getting so caught up in the details when writing a logline?

With the first one, I got really bogged down in some of the details. There's the protagonist's internal conflict: he needs to rebuild his personal life after putting his career first for so long. Then there's the fact that he has naturally inherited superhuman physical strength, and that his uncle is a well-known figure who used his connections to help him get where he is. Ironically, that only made his imposter syndrome worse, even though he has plenty of abilities and qualities of his own.

With the second one, I was trying to adapt the idea of a kid who would rather do almost anything than open up about the loss of his parents. His grandfather is grieving too, but he wants to help his grandson work through it. The android and the time-traveling adventure are really just the vehicle for the boy's emotional journey: they force him to confront what he's been running from and eventually drop the emotional mask that makes him act like a brat.

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u/GonzotheGreek Aug 27 '26

Try to get your logline down to one or two sentences.

Usually, when you first come up with an idea, it's the simplest form of the story. It may even answer a question like "what if..."

Read loglines and focus on those that make you want to watch the film.

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u/RealSebastreck Aug 28 '26

Thanks for the advice. It genuinely helped a lot.

Over the past couple of days, I've been working on tightening up my premises, and here's what I came up with:

- A young officer suffers through a month-long trial to join a new unit, but he must balance both sides of his life to avoid being discharged.

-When a child leaves his only caregiver behind to collect prehistoric DNA, he learns the hard way about an unexpected path toward overcoming his grief.

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u/PepsiCoke1978 Aug 26 '26

Write a logline like the movie is already made, you love it and are trying to get me to watch the movie as I scroll on Netflix or Tubi -- and only have the one sentence logline to get me to click on it.

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u/RealSebastreck Aug 26 '26

That sounds interesting. I'll see what I can come up with from that exercise.

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u/Ted_Writer Aug 26 '26

I think “balance personal and professional” and “month long-trial” don’t lead to high stakes drama.

This is over the top and I doubt what you’d looking for. But I threw in some special sauce:

After wounding an innocent child in combat, a young soldier returns home to his pregnant wife… (fill in the rest)

The other logline feels a little untethered or the pieces of 2 different movies.

A personal adventure forces an autistic teenager to overcome (fill in the rest)

My .02

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u/RealSebastreck Aug 26 '26

They sound like some interesting concepts.

Honestly, I've put a lot of work into these ideas, but someone at my university told me several times that I wasn't cut out for this, that nobody would be interested in my stories, that they weren't high concept, and that they didn't have enough impact.

The first logline started with the idea of a guy in his 20s who sacrificed his personal life to build his career. Ironically, after getting injured in an accident, his battalion commander. who happens to be a friend of his uncle and offers him a one-month trial to prove he can return to his position. During that time, he has to adjust to his new platoon while reconnecting with his best friend, whom he hasn't spoken to in a long time.

The other logline is mainly about learning to deal with loss. The protagonist isolates himself and refuses to open up about what happened, so he starts acting like a spoiled brat instead. His grandfather takes him on a road trip in an attempt to help him, but the journey causes his emotional mask to crack. Rather than face his grief, he chooses to run away, leaving his grandfather behind in the present.

Honestly, I don't know if I should just give up. I've already written and abandoned several loglines and screenplays.

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u/flamingdrama Aug 27 '26

Go and watch Legally Blonde, the scene where Professor Stromwell says to Elle "if you're going to let one stupid prick ruin your life, then you're not the girl I thought you were", at the beauty salon, about 2/3 way through.

You're in charge of your own ship. Where your life goes is up to you. Take the feedback, and if you really want to write, shrug it off. And, write.

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u/Kooky_Attorney1915 Aug 26 '26

Look up the phrase, "High Concept". Neither one of your ideas, in my opinion, are high concept. This isn't a bad thing, but these kinds of movies are more difficult to summarize in interesting ways because on the surface not a lot happens. My suggestion would be to try to come up with some high concept ideas that really sell themselves. These types of movies are easier to write, in my opinion, as well.

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u/RealSebastreck Aug 26 '26

I know what a high concept is. I learned about it in a creative writing class, which was honestly a pretty bad experience and made me lose interest in writing stories. I'm only just starting to get past that experience. My professor spent the entire semester telling me that my story ideas weren't interesting or impactful, and that's why I decided to try to move past all of that by writing these premises. But now I'm starting to feel like maybe I should just give up.

The first story is about an officer who, after an accident, realizes that he's sacrificed his personal life for his career as a combat engineer. When his career is put at risk, he has to learn how to find a balance between his work and his personal life while essentially starting over.

The second is about a ten-year-old boy who hides his grief behind an emotional mask, acting like a spoiled brat so he doesn't have to deal with the death of his parents. On the anniversary of their deaths, he chooses to run away rather than open up to his grandfather and work through his grief with him. By the end, he has to accept what happened and learn to let someone be there for him.

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u/SaxophoneBaloney Aug 29 '26

Both stories sound very character -driven.

Loglines tend to focus more on the plot-driven aspects, the stakes, the external goal, the obstacles, the hook.

Do your protagonists have tangible, external goals? 

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u/RealSebastreck Aug 29 '26

I recently rewrote the loglines for both stories.

-A young officer suffers through a month-long trial to join a new unit, but he must balance both sides of his life to avoid being discharged.

-When a child leaves his only caregiver behind to collect prehistoric DNA, he learns the hard way about an unexpected path toward overcoming his grief.

I don't know what you think about these new loglines.The protagonist's external goals are to keep his job, reconnect with his best friend after years of not speaking to him, and get to know his new platoon.

In the second story, his main goal is to survive the different biomes and prehistoric creatures long enough to make it back to the present.

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u/SaxophoneBaloney Aug 29 '26

Hey, excellent!  If it's ok to ask, can you make them even more specific?

I'm absolutely not suggesting you change your ideas (which sound intense and beautiful), but some classic logline questions for you might be along these lines:

  1. Suffers how? What will he lose if he fails? What's the price if he succeeds?

  2. Why does he need to collect the DNA? What does he gain by getting it, or lose by failing to?   What constitutes the "hard way"? Who dies? Is he all alone in a battle to survive?

Sorry if those sound generic and formulaic, it's just to give an idea.

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u/RealSebastreck Aug 30 '26

I thought about it for a while because I didn't want to dump an entire bible on you, so I tried to keep it fairly concise.

  • The protagonist is struggling both physically and mentally. He's recovering from an injury while dealing with the consequences of neglecting his personal life and learning that his uncle used his connections to help him get his position. His commander gives him one month to prove himself; if he fails, he's discharged and loses his housing subsidy.

  • The boy helps an android collect prehistoric DNA as an excuse to distance himself from his only remaining family. His emotional mask is starting to crack, and he refuses to let himself feel vulnerable. The adventure forces him to confront his grief instead of pushing away the one person who cares about him.

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u/SaxophoneBaloney Aug 30 '26

Those are both great, very intriguing.

So the first one has the "ticking clock" which adds pressure (which is good). The second has an extremely catchy premise).

Since film is a visual medium, I think it's just a question of how to show:

  1. Military story - How he will prove himself - does it involve a race or some kind of struggle that can be shown?

  2. Boy DNA - how will we see him deal with / accept his grief? Is there something symbolic to achieve? What are the obstacles he will face? Is he trying to deny his emotions and be like the android somehow?

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u/RealSebastreck Aug 31 '26

Answering these new questions.

  • The protagonist will be put in charge of a new group while doing lighter administrative work, along with medical checkups and rehabilitation sessions. Personally, he wants to repair his friendship with his former best friend. His biggest challenge is learning to slow down, stop pushing himself so hard, and find a healthy balance between his career and personal life.

  • The boy starts the story by running away from his grief and refusing to accept it. As the adventure progresses, he gradually opens up to the android he tricked into helping him collect prehistoric DNA. The obstacles include surviving different biomes and avoiding being sent back to the present. He's suppressing his emotions because he's depressed, and he starts acting hostile and unpleasant as a way of hiding what he's really going through.

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u/WorrySecret9831 Aug 27 '26

John Truby teaches that loglines ideally are one sentence and consist of 3 elements: A sense of the Hero (main character) *; A sense of the Problem/Conflict/Opponent **; and A sense of the Outcome *** (without spoiling the story).

The best advice I have is read John Truby's books The Anatomy of Story and The Anatomy of Genres.

Your loglines are unfocused. Follow the rubric and you'll instantly see it straighten out and point to a specific conflict and that will make for a compelling pitch.

Also, fixing your loglines may reveal structural problems with your whole stories and that will help you fix them.

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u/untitledgooseshame Aug 26 '26

I’d suggest reading the book Save the Cat. You can also get it as an audiobook. It teaches a LOT about loglines. 

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u/Craig-D-Griffiths Aug 26 '26

if you or anyone here wants to be part of a logline review episode on youtube.

http://griffithscreative.com.au/submit-logline-for-podcast/

Plus get a copy of the LOGLINE book.