Loglines in the Wild: Case Studies in Crafting an Incredible Story Pitch

By Jordan Smith

More logline know-how from the author of Finding the Core of Your Story!

Writers everywhere have learned to pitch their stories more effectively with Finding the Core of Your Story. Now author Jordan Smith is back with Loglines in the Wild, a first-hand look at the process of creating a great story pitch.

Inside, you’ll find:

• Eight complete case studies drawn from consulting sessions done with independent authors and filmmakers. Each case study highlights a different facet of logline craft and guides you to a better understanding of the logline process. See how a logline can help you with an early story idea, a first draft, and a published manuscript.
• Six new chapters of logline tips and tricks not covered in Finding the Core of Your Story. Learn the important difference between your hook and your twist, a quick trick for selecting the perfect adjective, how to punch up a logline with the consequences of your conflict, and more!
• Three tricks for spotting and fixing the clunky parts of your logline, and three ways to get a boost in the early logline drafting stage.
• A glossary of frequently used story-pitching terms so you can sound smart with words and phrases like setup clause, protagonist, and B-story.
• The fastest-ever crash course in the art of loglines—just in case you need a refresher or you’ve been uninitiated to this story-pitching tool of awesome. Get up to speed in about five minutes!

If you’ve ever wondered how pitching your story works in real life, Loglines in the Wild is for you. Grab your copy and get loglining today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balter Press
• Release date: Jun 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533700988

Jordan Smith

Jordan Smith is the author of Finding the Core of Your Story and the producer/director of the Month of the Novel web series. He runs the FixMyStory.com blog with the goal of helping indie authors market their books effectively on a shoestring budget. He lives in Georgia with his beautiful wife and a fluffy dog.

Book preview

Introduction

Once upon a time, I wrote a book called Finding the Core of Your Story, a guide to creating a single-sentence pitch (called a logline) for any story. After the book came out, I kind of thought I’d solved the whole story pitching thing. People said my book was thorough and extremely helpful, and I began seeing writers crafting loglines everywhere.

But then I started to get questions. Specific questions about how these concepts work in practice.  You see, in Finding the Core of Your Story, I gave a lot of examples based on popular movies and books. But every story presents its own set of unique problems when it comes to making a logline, and when you’re dealing with your own story that maybe isn’t finished or hasn’t even been drafted yet, it’s a little harder to envision the process.

That’s where this book was born: in the trenches of writing real loglines for real stories. In this book, you’ll find eight case studies detailing the process of creating loglines for actual stories by independent storytellers: six novels, one film, and one graphic novel. Each story was in a different place when we wrote the logline. Some were in the idea stage, while others had been fully drafted. In each case, you’ll see the starting point of the logline and the entire process the author and I went through to bring it to its final form.

In addition to the case studies, I’ve included six chapters of logline tips throughout the book. These articles cover some aspects of logline craft that I’ve discovered since I wrote Finding the Core of Your Story. I’ve tried to place them where they can help explain further some of the concepts explored in the case studies.

So without further ado, let’s get to it! I hope these logline case studies will help you see how the logline process works and give you the tools you need to improve your own story pitch.

Glossary

Antagonist: A fancy word for the bad guy.

B-Story: A secondary storyline, usually left out of the logline.

Catalyst: The event that forces the protagonist to take a step into the waiting adventure.

Continuing Adventures Series: A series made up of installments that don’t have to be read in order. Each story in the series can stand alone. Think Star Trek or Redwall.

First Act: A screenwriting term that refers to roughly the first thirty minutes of a film, which contains the setup for the rest of the story.

Handy-Dandy Three-Sentence Trick: A logline drafting technique to help you get all the details on paper. Write three sentences instead of one, then identify key elements to use in a single sentence version.

Hook: The part of your story that gets people interested.

Logline: A single sentence that outlines a story’s plot and unique elements.

Pantsing: Writing without an outline. The term is a tongue-in-cheek reference to writing by the seat of your pants.

Pitch: A presentation of a story idea with the goal of selling it to someone. A logline is a key part of a pitch.

Pitch Format: A logline format that starts by presenting the story title and genre. A typical template would be: [Title of story] is a [genre] story about [insert logline].

Protagonist: A fancy word for the main character.

Serial Series: A series made up of installments that are intended to be read in order. The stories in the series don’t stand alone. Think The Hunger Games or Lost.

Setup Clause: An optional part of a logline that sets up the main idea. For example, After he falls off a train...

Stakes: What the protagonist stands to lose if he fails. I like to ask, What really bad thing happens if our hero is unsuccessful?

Synopsis: A summary of a story, typically made up of several sentences.

Throughline: The main thread of the story, as opposed to the other storylines happening on the side.

A Crash Course in Loglines

I’m hoping that if you picked up this book, you know at least a little bit about loglines already. But in case you have no clue what a logline is (and I don’t fault you for that), here’s a brief crash course in how to write a logline. If you want more after this, I