Writers Tricks of the Trade MARCH-APRIL 2015 | Page 19

PRESS CONTROL THEN CLICK BUY TO PURCHASE A BOOK QUOTES ABOUT SCREENWRITING WRITING A KILLER LOGLINE (CONT’D) What’s the inciting incident? _________________________________________ What’s her goal? ___________________________________________________ What’s the reversal? ________________________________________________ Who’s the antagonist? ______________________________________________ What’s the hook? __________________________________________________ OKAY. ONE MORE, THEN YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN… This is the logline from one of my upcoming Lifetime movies ‘The Secret Sex Life of a Single Mom’: When stay-at-home-mom-of-two Delaine decides to divorce her controlling husband Robert, she goes online to find a new mate and winds up meeting a Dom who, by making her his sexual submissive, teaches her how to become more empowered in every aspect of her life… Who is the protagonist? _____________________________________________ What’s the important detail about her? ________________________________ What’s the inciting incident? _________________________________________ What’s her goal? ___________________________________________________ What’s the reversal? ________________________________________________ Who’s the antagonist? ______________________________________________ What’s the hook? __________________________________________________ A good logline contains seven elements: (1) The inciting incident. (2) The protagonist. (3) An important detail about the protagonist. (4) The protagonist’s plot goal. (5) The reversal. (6) The antagonist. (7) A hook that makes the reader want to know what happened. That’s a lot for one little sentence. But if it’s done right, it will tell your story succinctly without giving anything away. WRITERS’ TRICKS OF THE TRADE PAGE 9 “Collaborating on a film script involves two people sitting in a room separated by the silence of two minds working together.” ~Darlene Craviotto  “The answer to the question, 'where's the drama?' is another question: 'what's the problem?” ~ Billy Marshall Stoneking  MAR-APR 2015