Please help me welcome my friend from Canada, Cindy Carroll. She teaches an online class on how to think like a Hollywood screenwriter and improve your novel. Here's her bio:
Cindy Carroll joined RWA in 1992 and started out writing novels but turned to scripts when an idea for one of her favorite television shows wouldn’t leave her alone. That first attempt, and her second teleplay for the same show, garnered her honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition in the screenplay category. She graduated from Hal Croasmun’s screenwriting ProSeries intensive in June of 2008. Her interview with David Rambo, writer/producer for CSI appeared in the summer special edition of The Rewrit, the newsletter for Scriptscene, Romance Writers of America’s screenwriting chapter. Currently working on the rewrite of her second feature, Cindy is also developing two new television pilots.
Take it away, Cindy.
First, I wanted to say thanks to Liz for letting me blog with her today.
You’ve heard the term high concept. You’ve heard the term logline. There was a time when these terms were considered just screenplay terms. But not anymore. Now, more and more editors are asking for high concept and they want you to pitch them a logline of your story. Some people think these terms are interchangeable. They’re not.
You can put every high concept in a logline but not every logline is high concept. Clear as mud? A logline is the essence of your story in 25 words or less:
To stop A, character B must do C, but D happens.
When A happens, character B must take some action (C), but D happens.
Character A does something, then when A happens they must do C, but D happens.
But that doesn’t mean any of that will be high concept. High concept must have three things:
It must be unique. It must appeal to a wide audience. And it can be told in a single sentence and you can see the whole movie or book. So back to that logline. If it’s high concept you can convey the idea in a 25 word logline. But just because you can put the idea into one sentence doesn’t mean it’s high concept.
The logline for one of my works in progress is:
When an informant turns up dead, a by-the-book undercover cop models men's underwear to uncover the killer and stop a DVD pirating ring.
Not high concept by any means, but not all stories need to be high concept. They do have a better chance of selling but stories that aren’t high concept sell all the time.
Can you tell which of these movies are high concept and which are not? I’ll give you a hint there are three of each.
Star Wars
Head Over Heels
Liar Liar
Twilight
Little Miss Sunshine
The Blair Witch Project
I talk more in depth about loglines and high concept in my workshop Is That Hollywood Calling? - How Thinking Like a Screenwriter Can Improve Your Novel. Comment here to be entered to win a lecture packet. If you don’t win, don’t worry! There’s still time to register for the class at http://www.writersonlineclasses.com/?page_id=592.
Cindy
http://www.cindycarroll.com/blog
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorCindyCarroll
Liz talking now: Practice your logline here, and we'll try to help. Remember, one commenter gets a free lecture packet.
15 comments:
Liz and Cindy: This is great! I'm working on a new book and will definitely submit a stab at a log line in a few hours. I need the time to beef it up a bit :-)
I will be baaack.
Okay, have at it!! All comments are not only welcome but anticipated with appreciation. I need to up the ante on this some more. I fear it is a tad blah. This is women's fiction with romantic elements- a new genre for me.
Pregnant and alone, psychotherapist Alexandra Hunter flees to Italy only to find a demented grandmother, a house begging for attention and a disconcerting man who doesn’t understand ‘no’.
Great post, Cindy and Liz. Mine for my MG Samantha Granger series is:
A Digital Diva superhero with cellphone technology is just a phonecall away and ready to conquer the world...or at least the 8th grade!
Okay, here's mine for my paranormal mystery series.
A ghost comes back to help her four sisters solve her own murder, but a killer can't let that happen.
Are we even close, Cindy?
Very interesting. When I send Galaxy Girls to reviewers, before my blurb I say "Galaxy Girls is my homage to Gilmore Girls - if they came from another planet and use pheromones as weapons." A friend calls it "A cross between Gilmore Girls and 3rd Rock From the Sun," but now I think these two examples are high concept taglines instead of loglines.
It's confusing!
Wow, you guys were here early! I'm at work but I'll be back to give comments. Hopefully I'll be able to give comments from work. It depends on how busy we are today.
Keep the comments coming!
Okay, I'm back! Not sure for how long so I put everything in one post:
Hi Cassy!
Thanks for playing.
It sounds interesting, however, I don’t know what she wants. I’m assuming all the things you mention in the logline get in the way of what she wants. What was the inciting incident that made her flee? Being pregnant? Being alone? Why did she need to flee because of those things?
Hi Kari Lee.
This sounds like a good tag line for the series but what’s the logline for the first book? What happens in the first book that prods the character into action? What does she need to do in the first book? What happens if she doesn’t do it?
Hi Liz!
Thanks for having me.
This is pretty good. So the ghost is the main protagonist? If so, what are the consequences if she doesn’t have her murder solved? Sounds like her sisters will be in danger.
Hi Edie.
I do love the sound of your Galaxy Girls novel. Actually, the cross between Gilmore Girls and 3rd Rock From the Sun is a framing technique Hollywood uses. As screenwriters we’re told to never use that in a pitch unless someone asks for it so we should always have one ready. The danger of the framing technique is in comparing two things that the person might not have seen. I never watched Gilmore Girls for example. So if I didn’t already know what your story is about (because of excerpts I’ve read or other blurbs I’ve seen) I wouldn’t really know what your story is about.
It is confusing – loglines, taglines, framing – but I love it all. Keeps me on my toes when I have to come up with this things.
Cindy: This is hard to do in 30 words or less (I've already pushed your 25). What she wants is space and she has an allusion that a trip to Italy to see her grandmother will give her that. Boyfriend abandons her when he finds out she's pregnant (his baby) and is nasty about it, she has a terrible mother, nothing feels right--so she decides to take a risk and travel. Her intention isn't to stay in Italy, but that is what ends up happening in the end.
Does this help? ERRR!
Cindy, I love this kind of help/insight. Here is mine for my mystery/suspense EDGE.
A down-on-his-luck photojournalist tracks a former kidnap victim to the Edge of Alaska, unknowingly bringing the “ghost” of the cult leader determined to sacrifice her again.
Great post, Cindy. This is mine for the book that came out three months ago.
A historian finds a 19th century Scottish warrior buried in a crypt, but the warrior isn't dead. He's been sleeping for 150 years, waiting for someone to wake him.
Cassy, so her boyfriend abandoning her is what prompts her to go to Italy? So she can't have the space she wants in Italy because of her grandmother and the disconcerting man? What are the consequences of not getting what she wants?
Hi Tiffinie.
Why does he track down the former kidnap victim? What prompted him to look for her? Is it an actual ghost that comes after her? What does the down-on-his-luck photojournalist want? Does he want to get a story from the kidnap victim?
Hi Anita.
Sounds like a cool story. I'd want to know what happens when he wakes up.
And the winner of the lecture packet is Tiffinie! Please give your email address to Liz so that I can send the lecture packet to you. I'll be sending out lecture packets to the winners August 31 after the blog tour is over.
Thank you Cindy! I love this blog!
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