Writing A Screenplay That Will Sell To Hollywood by Izzy Frost

Script Tip #3 – The Logline

Once you’ve picked the best of your 25 story ideas for your screenplay, the next thing you need to do is create a logline for your story.

What is a Logline?

It’s simple: the logline is one or two sentences that say everything about your story, and is used as a double-check throughout the screenwriting process to make sure that you stay on track with your writing. From these few lines, you should be able to break out every element in a successful screenplay!

A good logline has four key elements:

1. a type of protagonist (your hero)
2. a type of antagonist (the bad guy or obstacle)
3. a conflict (what’s stopping the hero?)
4. an “open-ended question” (what will happen?)

Include an adjective in your logline to describe your protagonist and antagonist.  Isn’t a homicidal barber more interesting than just a barber?

A good logline has a sense of irony; it’s that thing that intrigues us or makes us curious about what happens next.  It’s a surprise twist at the end of the sentence that we didn’t expect.  Yet remember: the logline doesn’t have to tell the whole story.  One of the reasons a good logline intrigues is because we don’t know what happens.  That’s why it should be open-ended.

A good logline has a sense of audience and cost.  Do you know who your movie is for?  Teens?  Women?  Is it a date movie?  Or the big magilla: the 4-quadrant hit like Shrek or Pirates of the Caribbean that appeals to Men AND Women above AND below age 25.  Draw from all four of these quadrants and you’ve really got yourself a winner.  Just make sure you know who you’re targeting!

A great logline must also have a great title.  Title and logline are the one-two punch that makes studio executives swoon and agents reach for their cell phones.  Good ones like Legally Blonde “say what it is,” but do so without being so “on the nose” that it’s unappealing.  My favorite title of all time?  The 40-Year-Old Virgin — not only the title, but the concept.

Your logline should have the four key elements; if not, make it so!  And be sure to look at your logline throughout the screenwriting process to be certain you haven’t strayed off the path of your story.

My logline for ‘Killing Jewels’:

A multi-phobic, withdrawn, young novelist discovers she has an unusual tie with the serial killer who is stalking her.

Feel free to post your loglines in the comment section of this post for others to discuss and comment on.

After you decide on your logline, drop back by my blog for the next tip on writing your screenplay.

ScriptGirrl

Script Tip #2 – Brainstorming For Ideas

The first thing you need, before writing a screenplay, is an idea that will rock Hollywood.  To find that idea, you’ll need to begin with the first phase of writing a screenplay.  You need to brainstorm!

The Brainstorming Phase of writing your screenplay starts with the creative process of generating as many creative ideas as you can – without judgement.  The goal of this stage is Quantity, not Quality!

When you get an idea, just jot it down.  Don’t edit.  Don’t judge.  Just come up with as many ideas as you can.  You can always come back and make them good later. The thing to remember here is: Don’t get it right.  Get it written!
Look everywhere for ideas!

Every time you come across something interesting in a person, a job, a newspaper headline, a news cast, a dream, a joke, a song lyric, or even while watching other movies, ask yourself, “What if that idea were set someplace else?  What if the characters decided to do this instead?  What if that cop was really the killer?  What would happen then?”

Use any stimuli you can find and when you come up with an idea, jot it down. Carry a notebook or a tape recorder.  (I like to use the tape recorder in my cell phone since it’s always with me and handy).  It is the very act of looking for ideas that stimulates the creative process itself!

You can also go to stories that already exist.  Say that you see something on the news about a man who survived for a month in some freezing wilderness after he got lost in a snow storm while camping.  You could track him down and option the rights to adapt his story into a screenplay.  Or you could do the same for an interesting story or book you’ve read.  But, I’d suggest that you write a few screenplays and get a good grip on the craft of screenwriting using your own ideas, first.

Also, adapting your own biography into a screenplay is a BIG No No.  What you find to be exciting in your own life will probably be be dull to watchers. You are much too close, and emotionally tied to your own experiences to be able to be objective or judge what the mass audience will like.  Not to mention that it is very difficult to change your own story and fictionalize it.

On the other hand, it is perfectly acceptable to draw on your own experiences using a setting you are familiar with and then adding fictional characters and/or a fictional plot to that setting.

For instance, if you are a taxi cab driver you know the ins and outs of the profession and you would be more able than a person who has never driven a cab to write a fictional story using a taxi cab as the setting.  Get the idea?

Don’t start writing your screenplay until you come up with at least 2 dozen story concepts.  Once you come up with those 24 ideas, drop back by my blog and I’ll tell you how to choose the best possible idea from your list of ideas by using Hollywood guidelines and a concept called, The Log Line.

ScriptGirrl

Script Tip #1 – Starting Out

Screenwriting is a profession and just like for any other profession in the world, if you want to excel at your profession, you must first learn the basic rules and then practice what you learn.  And, in the case of screenwriting, no matter how much you think you know about the craft, there is always something new to learn that will spin you off in a new, exciting direction.

To learn the basic rules, there are three things that you must start doing:

1. Read every movie script you can get your hands on.

Reading scripts will not only teach you the technical aspects of writing a screenplay, in other words location, dialogue, and action, it will also give you a feel for creating timing, and tension in your own work, and it will show you how other screenwriters use the ‘tricks of the trade’ as you learn those yourself.

Free movie scripts can be found at a multitude of sites on the internet.  I have included several of those sites on this blog under the heading of: ‘Find A Script’.  If you have a printer, it is much nicer if you can print off a script so you can carry it around with you and make notes on it.  I’m a bit sneaky on the ‘script printing’ thing.  Can’t afford the ink and paper?  Try printing it off at work.  Consider it a benefit of the job.  ;)

2. Watch a ton of movies.

Watching movies is the next necessary thing you need to do.  Immerse yourself in movies of all genres – Romance, Comedy, Action, Adventure, Animation, and Horror.

The first viewing should be for the pure joy of watching the movie.  Then, watch it again, this time from an analytical viewpoint.  Everything that is said, done, or shown in a scene has a very specific reason for being there.  In other words, nothing is said, done, or shown that won’t move the plot of the movie forward.  Nothing is irrelevant!  Try to figure out the reasons why those things are in each scene.

I personally like to watch the Director’s Cut after I’ve watched the movie a couple of times.  You can get a lot of information about what different things in the scenes mean and why they were placed there.

If you can afford it, I’d suggest a membership at Netflix or Blockbuster.  I have one at Netflix and am always amazed at how many of their movies I can download instantly for free, while I’m waiting on my next movie delivery by mail.

3. Write, Write, Write every day!

The last thing that you must do is to set aside time every day to work on your screenplay.  Don’t worry that your writing sounds lame or that the plot is dwindling off, just keep writing.  Having a routine writing schedule will keep the creative side of your brain in shape and you’ll learn all kinds of things from your mistakes.  Then, as you learn the professional techniques of screenwriting, your work will improve and before you know it, you’ll be putting out some killer stuff!

Don’t get into the rut that a lot of beginning screenwriters get into.  Don’t become a professional student by attending hundreds of classes and seminars, thinking that you’ll start writing when you know what your doing.  You’ll end up with a ton of book knowledge but not a single, concrete script to show for your efforts.

The best way to learn, is to take a class or seminar and then write an entire script using the techniques you learned from those lessons.  Then, take another class or seminar from a different teacher and write an entire script using the new techniques you’ve learned before you attend a new class.

Yes.  There’s always a new and exciting teacher with a different approach to screenwriting out there.  And, all of those techniques are valid and worth learning to add to your writing arsenal.  But, if you don’t practice what you learn, as you learn it, you will lose it.

Summing it up, read scripts, watch movies, and write every day!

ASIDE:

I’m thinking of adding a ‘Chat Board’ where my readers can discuss different aspects of the craft of screenwriting -if there is any interest from my readers for something like that.  Drop me a line and let me know.

ScriptGirrl

I’m back in the saddle again with a couple of pieces of news.

The bad news is that in the process of upgrading my WordPress, I somehow lost all of my posts.

The good news is that I am back in full-swing now and will be posting my ‘Script Tips’ on a regular basis.  Luckily, I kept copies of some of the posts I’d already made so I will upload them and start from there.

I’d like to thank all of my followers for waiting so patiently for me to return to posting on this blog.  I has been a very active year in Hollywood for me but I have accomplished a lot of goals.

Time to settle back in to posting my Tips and working on my own screenplay, ‘Killing Jewels’.

Scriptgirrl