Logline Exercises, Part 4

Every now and then, I write silly, wacky, terrible loglines . . . on purpose.

Writing wacky loglines is a good way to remind myself that this is supposed to be fun.

I’m a storyteller. The only limits are in my imagination.

It’s good practice to test my limits with some craziness now and then.

If you don’t want to get crazy, don’t. It’s up to you. Consider logline exercises as rudiments, drills, exercises.

We’re just practicing.

I have a doc called “Logline Exercises.” 

When I’m between projects, I crank out a bunch of loglines. It’s fun. I don’t have to commit to any of them! There’s no pressure!

I have loglines about animals, robots, ghosts, and art flippers. I have one about a boy who lives most of his life in a backyard treehouse. I have one about marijuana legalization and one about a frontline Covid worker. I have a concept inspired by Hallmark holiday movies, and it’s called Ranch Santa.

I have a concept for a holiday movie called Holiday Break-in. There’s a 2018 movie called Christmas Break-in, but I haven’t seen it. It looks to be Home Alone in a school. My idea is more like Narnia in the Midwest.

Here’s another one of mine: Haunted Auntie is about an arrogant Indian-American man who wants the perfect western bride, but he insults the family matchmaker who curses him with an auntie from hell.

That seems promising, eh?

Now get a load of this one:

Assasquatch! He’s a sasquatch assassin. Anyone who’s ever seen the real sasquatch . . . is dead.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten because . . . yeah.

It’s strangely easy to write, say, five loglines at once because I’m already at that level of abstract thinking about stories.

I find it difficult to crank out loglines on the same day I’m diving down to the level of the scene and working through characters in conflict. The levels of logline and scene activate two very different ways of thinking.

Writing a logline is about thinking in sweeping terms about life . . . and then putting that into one sentence.

Writing a scene is about thinking in detailed terms about a particular moment . . . and then expanding that moment into a thousand words.

Writing a scene, I’m summoning one particular world and immersing myself within it.

Writing loglines, I’m swatting at planets.

I just can’t do both of those things on the same day. I need breaks in between those ways of thinking.

A logline is a little conceptual puzzle in the form of a sentence, and it’s fun to write bad ones, terrible ones, crazy ones, messy ones.

Try it. Who cares?

You might stumble onto something. You might, in your giddy recklessness, set free some part of your inhibited mind.

You might discover a story you’d dared not admit, even to yourself, that you’ve always wanted to write.

Try the personal. 

Maybe you wish you’d lived a different life. Maybe there’s a choice you made ten years ago that you’d make differently now. Maybe there’s a choice you’re making now, and you wonder what would happen if you changed your mind. What if you did take that road trip after high school? What if you did become a ski bum after college? What if you didn’t quit the band?

Try to recapture the innocence of childhood. 

Remember those weird thoughts you had as a kid? Do you remember your nightmares? How did you dream about the future? When I was a kid, I used to imagine living in a hidden base or a secret lair. I used to imagine living in the woods like a hobbit or ewok. Kids don’t have many rules about how life works. They leap from dream to reality in an instant. I’m thinking I should crank out a logline about a child who fantasizes in a particular way about how life works.

Try a new genre. 

I haven’t written a sci-fi novel per se (SmartHome Rebel comes close), but I have a logline for Crime Traveler. I only recently discovered that’s the title for a 1997 TV show written by Anthony Horowitz. That show was about the detectives. My story’s about a criminal who wants out of the crew. It’s Heat meets Bill & Ted.

Try a parody. 

I have a logline for a parody of The Bourne Identity called The Bear Identity. It’s about a civilized bear in a small town out west who searches for his family only to find out . . . they’re a warrior clan bent on attacking the humans encroaching on their territory. Anything can be parodied, and as you develop your story, you may depart from the source material enough that you have left the realm of parody and begun a brand-new story, sincerely.

Try something truly nutty. 

I had this idea that a secret portal in the brain allows you to enter previous lives. My son told me something similar happens in the game Assassin’s Creed. I guess in AC it’s about memories, which is also a concept explored in Inception (2010) and Reminiscence (2021). In mine, I wanted to explore the live-many-lives-in-one-life idea. Sometimes these nutty ideas express your own secret wishes. What’s a crazy alternate reality that you might actually want to experience? 

Try to combine elements that don’t usually go together. 

I mean, come on: Hot-tub Time Machine (2010), Sharknado (2013)? Those exist . . . with sequels. So go for it. You can do this for novels, too: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009), right? I have a story about old people as hired killers called Tired Guns. It’s about retiree assassins. They got old, and they got nothing to lose.

Okay. Start a document. Get crazy with loglines. Have fun!

And now for the moment you’ve been waiting for: I’m about to share another logline template.

I know. More logline templates! Ahhhhhh!

But loglines are tools, and there are many different kinds.

Here’s my template for having fun with logline exercises. It’s more developed than the baby logline I’ve been using.

A likable character in a dead end faces a life-changing dilemma and expresses the strength of their desire by choosing the Act 2 way to solve that dilemma, which puts the hero in an adventure they are unsuited for. The adventure comes with a catch, and by the Death Moment, the hero changes their mind about the Act 2 way of resolving that dilemma, which necessitates a new plan.

Now it used to be that I’d have a cool story idea . . . and not have a clue about what to do with it. I’d have no idea how to make the next step. How do I develop a story from this . . . this concept, this weird notion, this flight of fancy? It’s just a concept. I want to write a novel or a script. How do I expand this, develop this, make it into a dramatic . . . something?

Today, I have way more tools in my writer’s toolbox and way more experience developing a story from a little flash of inspiration.

I know loglines and acts, beats and character webs. I know that my kind of story is about the positive transformation of a hero.

It also took me forever to get here. And I still loop around in this process, retreat to the clouds, dive back to the mess of Legos on my desk, summon the world of a scene, swoop over the terrain of the midpoint.

So when you start your doc of logline exercises, you have several different logline templates to choose from. (I’ve discussed at least a dozen logline templates in previous entries.) You have the tools you need. You can find even more logline templates online and in books.

The more I’ve played with making up loglines, the more that story structure has sunk into my imagination.

I learn to recognize good stories during the process of making up loglines. It’s like playing a musical instrument or learning a martial art. I’m learning the notes and the vocabulary, the scales and the stances, the melodies and the takedowns. And over time, I’m developing my own style.

And when I have too much fun, I glance out the window and imagine an assasquatch in the woods. When I see him, I duck.