Think of the Logline as your drama series in microcosm. So if you are one of those writers who pale at the thought of having to summarise the world you have created for the benefit of a time-poor Producer, take heart. I know from personal experience that Producers understand there’s a lot of pressure on the writer/creator to get this Logline – this paragraph of a few lines singing so they can sit back and enjoy the story unfold as the conversation flows from the initial question ‘what are you working on at the moment’ to ‘tell me more – do you have a Treatment?’.Įven the more seasoned writers of Television Drama that I work with via my Consultancy, struggle with Loglines. That is why I wrote my book Writing for Television Series Serials and Soaps so writers can easily access the mind of TV Producers like me, and deliver the goods we are looking for via the development process. I was a Drama Series Producer before I set up my Script Development and Training Company Script Advice and I know from my time working on the coal face of long running drama production, that although we Producers were always looking for the next new idea, we certainly didn’t have time to squander looking for it. This little paragraph holds an important role in the development process and has a vital job to do in order that your idea not only gets a proper airing with those that can possibly make it happen, but also be the spark that starts the whole creative journey off for you and your project. The Logline if written well, is going to break the ice around the conversation you want to begin and to also continue, with a prospective Producer/Development Exec. Rule of thumb for me, is no more than one paragraph of between 4 – 6 lines – that way you give yourself some wiggle room, but you don’t indulge in waffle and you don’t allow yourself to stray from the key elements that need to be in this paragraph. You do need to be able to memorise this all important nugget of drama information, so that you can, when asked, recall the vital elements of the story in a second and this fact alone will ensure you keep your Logline short and to the point. You do need to edit your Logline by definition this demands that it is a succinct summary of your story, but tying yourself in knots to make it no more than 2 lines long is not worth the contortion. This to me is frankly misleading and actually wrong. There are some who would demand that a logline has a certain number of words in it that the length is prescriptively controlled, that under no circumstances should you exceed X number of characters. There’s an awful lot of conflicting information about Loglines on the Internet.
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