Premise Line–Log line Conundrum: Aren’t They the Same Thing—NOT!

Wending one's way through the language of the story development jungle is one of the most crazy-making issues faced by new authors and screenwriters. This problem is wonderfully exemplified by the phrases “premise line” and “log line.” Yes—now is a good time to go running screaming down the hall.

We hear these phrases used interchangeably all the time. Well-intentioned advice given by so many writing teachers and gurus becomes migraine material when "premise line" and "log line" are actually used in the same sentence referring to the same thing. I’ve actually heard this done by story consultants, “Yes, you need a great premise line. In fact, the log line is the key to any good premise. So, take the time to develop a great premise line.” Still running screaming down the hall, FYI.

Okay, I didn’t hear this exact exchange; I paraphrase. But this is what happens. Writing teachers mix these two critical concepts up and spew them out as if they were Twiddle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Premise line and log line are two DIFFERENT tools, two DIFFERENT concepts, and two different skills. Okay, stop running down the hall now and listen.

So, what is the difference?

The premise line is your story. Period. The premise line is a complex and subtle construction that reveals not just a main character and an adventure; it actually delivers the basic structure of the story to the reader-viewer. The art of the premise line is the art of precision and clarity of ideas. A well-formed premise will “click” when you read it to someone and they will say, “Yeah, I see that story. I’d read that.” They “see” the story in just a few short lines. But, getting those lines just right might take hours, days, or even weeks. I’ve known some to take months. What is it they “see”?

The premise line gives them a clear vision of a protagonist acting with a purposeful desire toward a goal that is opposed by some force, and all this leading to some dénouement. This is a simplistic definition, but it captures the essence of what a premise line accomplishes. I will be writing a later post that breaks this down specifically with examples, but for now, know that the premise line is the structure of your story told as a single sentence (that’s right—1 sentence; and not a long run-on sentence sprinkled with comma splicing!) that has forward movement and gives a sense of the story’s beginning, middle, and end (no, don’t give away the ending).

Here is an example of a good premise line (three guesses what book/movie):

When the innocent, youngest son of a powerful mafia godfather discovers his beloved father has been shot as part of a turf war, he agrees to join the family to exact revenge and re-establish the family’s honor, until his actions force him to cross a line he was never meant to cross, dooming him to become the next Godfather.

Contrast this to a log line. The log line is your story’s high concept in a short sentence. If you don’t know what high concept means (yes, it means something) then check out my post on this concept.

The log line, unlike the premise line, does not show the overarching shape of your story, it does not give you the action line of the protagonist, nor does it give you a sense of the big picture. No, the log line’s job is to grab you and get your mind and emotions churning. There are seven components to a high-concept idea:

• High level of entertainment value
• High degree of originality
• High level of uniqueness (different than original)
• Highly visual
• Possesses a clear emotional focus (root emotion)
• Targets a broad, general audience, or a large niche market
• Sparks a “what if” question
  (Excerpted from my book The Anatomy of a Premise Line: 7 Steps to Foolproof Premise and Story Development. Bookbyte Digital, publication date 2012)

When a story has one or more of these components, then it can say it is high concept. The more the merrier. If it only has one or two, the claim can get iffy. Each of these bullets means something specific and are important to understand. Please refer to my post for more explanation. But, for the purposes of this post understand that the log line exemplifies these seven components of the high concept, and it does so in few words. Here are some examples:

• A monster shark terrorizes a small coastal town [Jaws, Peter Benchly]
• A cop battles uber-thieves when they take over an office building. [Nothing Lasts Forever, Roderick Thorp (film: Die Hard)]
• A young boy discovers he’s a wizard and goes off to wizard school. [Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling]
• A man saves a pregnant woman in a world where women no longer give birth. [Children of Men, P.D. James]

None of these tell you about a hero or heroine, none of them give you any idea about the journey to be traveled, but they do grab you and get you wondering “what if.” That’s the job of the log line.

These are the differences between the two tools. It does not take a rocket scientist to see how they work together to form a powerful effect in pitching a story. One grabs you and the other satisfies the “what if” with a bit more detail. Together they sell the story and get you that next meeting.

So, to summarize: premise line and log line are two different tools that work synergistically to create a powerful image of your story. They were built to work together, not separately. If you build them well, you will take many lunches—and you won’t have to pay either.

Now go be brilliant.

The Greatest Screenwriting Secret I Ever Learned

Like every screenwriter I thought my job was pretty much done after I wrote and finalized my submission draft. Screenplay done, edited, vetted by my trusted supporters, and ready for the cold, hard world of the screenplay spec market.

But, no, not so fast. A dear and experienced friend of mine, Director Stephen David Brooks (HeadsNTailz:Video Review ), revealed to me what has become one of my most valued lessons in the screenwriting trade. When we started collaborating on projects together, he revealed that the pros know a simple truth: you never write one screenplay; you need at least four. In other words, every script you write will need four separate versions (not rewrites). Each draft is targeted for a specific stage of the green light minefield. Pass through all the stages, and your script might just get to principle photography.

The logic (which is irrefutable) goes like this:

The Reading Draft:

The first draft you write is meant for the gatekeepers. These include studio readers, freelance story analysts, creative executives, agents and literary managers. These are the first line of defense of the movie industry’s immune system and their job is to seek out and destroy all screenplays that make it past the permeable membrane of Hollywood. The only way your screenplay will not end up absorbed and digested by the killer reader-cells is if your screenplay is written to appease their sensibilities. This means that the first script’s job is to be read. The script must not be geared for a director to shoot, it must not be skewed in any way to appear “camera ready.” No, the primary job of this first draft is to be read. So, the script should be written to be read, not shot. This is a huge point, as most newbie screenwriters think they should write a script that is ready for production. No, just the opposite is true. Think readers, not filmmakers. If the first draft is a good read, then it might survive the Hollywood immune response and make it to the next stage.

The Talent Draft:
Whew! You made past the gatekeepers. Now the agents or the studio creative executives want to package the script. They want to “attach elements.” This is Hollywoodese for “let’s find people to act in this fine film.” Any good agent or creative executive will then ask the writer to make some changes. While the writer will have to respond to what will most likely be inane suggestions, this is actually the time the smart writer will tweak the script so talent will find it irresistible. Now the job of the script is to be acted, not read. The writer wants the dialogue to pop, the characters to shine through the action, and the emotion to swell in the actors' hearts. You want the "key" talent to find their Oscar moment in your text. The script’s job now is to sell itself as a career vehicle, not as a good read for the weekend. The entire script should be rewritten to emphasize an actor's participation; at this stage the play’s the thing.

Distributor Draft:

Double whew! Gatekeeper killer-cells pacified, talent attached, now the producers of the film, if they’re clever, will ask the screenwriter to do another draft for the distributors. If a studio is already involved this won’t be necessary. But, if it is an indie film then this may be needed. The distributor draft is designed to show the company(ies) partnering with the producers that the filmmakers value their input and respect their draconian contract terms. The job of this draft is to show the market potential for the story. Where could product placement go, what action elements are highlighted to attract the right demographics, etc.? While the play’s the thing in the talent draft, here the market’s the thing. The writer now tweaks the script to highlight market potential and the global reach of the story. This may be subtle and anything but drastic in terms of real changes, but smart writers know they need to do this to be competitive.

Shooting Draft:

Reader killer-cells appeased, talent emoting, distributors counting beans; all is finally ready for the real deal. Now, the filmmakers can finish the shooting draft that will be used for principle photography. Now (shhh, don't tell anyone else), the writer and director can write the movie they want to shoot. They can undo, rewrite, delete, and reinvent anything they had to do previously to get to this final stage. Now the original vision can be re-written back into the script, if it was lost along the way. Were all the earlier drafts and stages of the process pointless, if now the writer just brings it back to where it all started? No, film making and screenwriting (unlike playwriting) is a collaborative process. The tweaks from all the earlier stages will not be totally undone, especially if a studio is involved, but this is a safe plateau in the process for realigning vision and dramatic focus, if necessary.

So, this is the greatest secret I’ve ever learned about screenwriting. Writers need to be adaptive to the requirements of the business of writing, and be ready to be responsive to all the stakeholders in a project—money rules, not creative vision. There’s plenty of time for re-establishing vision when you get to the shooting draft. In the meantime, learn the secret and have a long career.

Now, go write four drafts.

High Concept: Yes—It Actually Means Something!

As writers we have all come up against the agent, publisher, studio hack or fellow writer who, when asked to give feedback on our story retorts, “Yeah, good idea, but … it needs to pop more. There’s no high concept.” Sigh. And what the heck does that mean? What are you supposed to do with that? People throw this phrase around like the definition is common knowledge.

But when asked to explain their sorry selves, these same people only deliver cliches, like:

• It’s your story’s hook
• It’s what’s fun about your story
• It’s your story in a single image
• It’s your story’s heart
• It’s your story as a movie one-sheet
• It’s the essence of your premise
• And so on …

All of these have some truth to them. All of these speak to the idea of a high concept, but none of them really explain the darn thing. “High concept” has become a term d’art that everyone uses and that no one really understands.

After much hair pulling, moaning, and sleepless nights analyzing this idea, I have stumbled upon an elegant construct that I think will with both define the term accurately, but also give writers a tool for testing their ideas to quickly see if there is a high-concept component present. It goes like this:

High concept applies to any idea: motorcycle design, toothpaste, cooking, comic books, novels, movies, the list is endless. High concept is about essence; that visceral thing that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and doesn’t let go. From a writing perspective, a story idea that is high concept captures the reader’s or viewer’s imagination, excites their senses, get’s them asking “what if,” and sparks them to start imagining the story even before they have read a word. High concept drives the commercial book business, as well as the film and television industries. A high-concept idea has the following seven qualities:

The 7 Qualities of a High-Concept Idea™:

• High level of entertainment value
• High degree of originality
• High level of uniqueness (different than original)
• Highly visual
• Possesses a clear emotional focus (root emotion)
• Targets a broad, general audience, or a large niche market
• Sparks a “what if” question
  (Excerpted from my book How Not to Write Your Self-Published Book: Top 25 Writer Fails & Fixes. Xela Opus Press, publication date 2013)
  

Let’s look at each of these to get a better idea of what they mean:

High-level of entertainment value: This can be elusive. Defining “entertainment value” is like trying to define pornography; it’s in the eye of the beholder. Simply put, you know if something is entertaining, or not, if it holds your attention and sparks your imagination. If you are distracted easily from the idea or interested purely on an intellectual basis, then it is safe to say that the idea may be interesting, engaging, and curious, but not entertaining.

High degree of originality: What does it mean to be original? Some common words associated with originality are: fresh, new, innovative, novel (no, not a book). Think of originality as approach-centric. The idea may be centered in a familiar context, but the approach (original take) offered to get to that familiar context has never been used before, for example:

Frankenstein:
Familiar idea: evil monster terrorizes the humans.
Original take: the monster and humans switch moral ground and the humans terrorize the monster.

Dog Day Afternoon:
Familiar idea: man robs a bank for money.
Original take: man robs a bank to get sex change for his transsexual lover and wins the hearts and minds of the people.

Lord of the Flies:
Familiar idea: survivors shipped wrecked on an island.
Original take: the survivors are proper English schoolboys who abandon all civilized norms reverting into primitive savages.

So, originality is more about finding new ways to present the familiar, rather than inventing something new from scratch.

High level of uniqueness: Whereas originality is about approach and fresh perspective, uniqueness is about being one-of-a-kind, first time, and incomparable. Being original can also involve uniqueness, but being unique transcends even originality.

Highly visual: high-concept ideas have a visual quality about them that is palpable. When you read or hear about a high-concept idea your mind starts conjuring images and you literally see the idea unfold in your mind. This is why high-concept books make such good films when adapted. Books with cinematic imagery are almost always high-concept stories.

Possesses a clear emotional focus: Like imagery, high-concept ideas spark emotion, but not just any emotion, usually it is a primal emotion: fear, joy, hate, love, rage, etc. There is no wishy-washy emotional engagement of the reader. The involvement is strong, immediate, and intense.

Possesses mass audience appeal: The idea appeals to an audience beyond friends and family. The target market is broad, diverse, and large. Some ideas are very niche, appealing to a specific demographic, but this is usually a large demographic. High-concept ideas are popular ideas, mass ideas, and often trendy ideas.

Usually born from a “what if” question: What if dinosaurs were cloned (Jurassic Park)? What if women stopped giving birth (Children of Men)? What if Martians invaded the Earth (War of the Worlds)? High-concept ideas are often posed first with a “what if” scenario and then the hook becomes clear. The hook is that part of the high concept that grabs the reader. It is often the one piece of the idea that is the original concept or the unique element. In the three examples just given, each of them has a clear hook that leads to a high-concept premise line (the "premise line" will be the subject of a later post).

Do you have to have all seven qualities for an idea to be high concept? No, but the more of them you have, the more likely you will have a strong high concept. When the idea of high concept is put in the context of these seven qualities, it becomes easier to see that commercial ideas and literary (i.e., soft) ideas often have a clear line of demarcation. That line is the high concept. The next piece of this concept concerns the log line, which is a practical tool for realizing the potential of your high concept. In other words, your log line (different than a premise line!) is your high concept stated in a short, concise sentence. But, this is the subject of a later post.

I hope this helps. It sure helped me when I figured it out.

Now, go be brilliant.

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest Winners 2011 (Yikes)

The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is a writing contest held annually and is sponsored by the English Department of San Jose State University. Writers have to "compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels," i.e., be bad, very bad.

The contest was started in 1982 and is named for English novelist and playwright Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, author of the much-quoted "It was a dark and stormy night". This opening, from his 1830 novel Paul Clifford, continues in perfect, purple prose:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

Well, the 2011 winners and losers are in: (be ready to cringe)

1st Place:

"Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."

Sue Fondrie,Oshkosh, WI

At 26 words, Prof. Fondrie’s submission is the shortest grand prize winner in Contest history, proving that bad writing need not be prolix, or even very wordy.

2nd Place:

"As I stood among the ransacked ruin that had been my home, surveying the aftermath of the senseless horrors and atrocities that had been perpetrated on my family and everything I hold dear, I swore to myself that no matter where I had to go, no matter what I had to do or endure, I would find the man who did this . . . and when I did, when I did, oh, there would be words.

Rodney Reed, Ooltewah, TN

For a list of all the happy entrants : http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2011.htm

Here's to hoping they never write that novel!

Attack of the Three-Act Structure: Run for Your Lives!

As writers we have all been bamboozled! We have done the one thing we, as writers, should never do—assume. We have assumed that because someone writes a bloody book and gives advice about writing that: 1) they know what the hell they’re talking about, 2) they are right, 3) because they wrote a book they have something original to say.

All of these assumptions are dead wrong. And you can extrapolate all this to writer-bloggers (including me!). Like I always say, my mantra if you will: listen to everyone, follow no one. So listen up—

One of the great lies we have all swallowed, only because the source of the lie spoke with some authority or sold books or screenplays, is the lie of the three-act structure. The idea that a story is told in three acts is about as true and real as Area 51, or the Legion of Doom, or Elvis still being alive (sorry, he’s really dead). Three acts have NOTHING to do with storytelling. However, three acts have a great deal to do with physical stage production. Let me explain.

Way back in the days of the Greeks, we’re talking pre-default days—circa 500–300 B.C.—drama was king. Theater, in the form of epic poetry, was the Comic-Con of the age. Physical plays performed by human beings on a stage that required moving sets and technical setups (some amazingly elaborate) were an unavoidable part of physical production of a play. Even then it was not thought smart to have the audience sit and watch the sausage being made, so some enterprising Greek came up with the idea of curtains or screens that could be put into place to shield the audience from the gross happenings between transitions. Curtains were one way to not break the mood, to not lose the tempo, etc.

Thus, acts were born. Writers started writing to accommodate these changes in the physical requirements in their plays. Acts were sometimes three, sometimes two, and sometimes ten! Even 2500 years ago there was no hard and fast rule about the number three. So, the idea of acts is not an idea related to telling a story, it is an idea related to a specific form of delivering a story: i.e., a stage play. Acts are about the constraints of physical production, not writing or storytelling. 

Commercial television is another place where acts make sense, because of commercials.  Every 17 or 20 minuets you have to break the story to sell soap—thus an act.  TV shows have anywhere from 4–6 acts due to commercial breaks.  Again, not a part of storytelling; a part of selling soap, i.e., how the story is delivered due to the constraints of the storytelling environment! (Remember, TV is not an entertainment medium, it is a sales medium—TV shows exist so you'll watch the commercials, not the other way around.)

So, where the hell did we get this cockamamie idea that screenplays or novels should be told in three acts (or four or six)? “Oh,” replies the literary critic, "it comes from Aristotle. In his foundational work Poetics he laid out the necessity of three acts in drama and comedy.”

WRONG!

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.) never talked about acts. He talked about a beginning, middle, and end in any drama or comedy, but he laid down no such rule about acts. So, don’t blame him.

Not to point fingers, because I think the actual origin of this in modern times is impossible to “finger,” but one influential source for this monstrosity of an idea is Syd Field. We all have a debt of gratitude to this man for trailblazing the field of screenwriting for popular audiences. He is a great man and he deserves his place in the pantheon of marketing mavericks. Yeah, I know … here comes the “but.”

But—Syd, more than anyone, popularized the idea of three acts through his “Paradigm” theory; the idea that stories are told in three acts, but that the second act should be broken up into parts A and B. And because he was "the first," and because he was articulate and made sense, people assumed this must be true; this must be the way of things. In Hollywood this notion of three acts took hold like a pernicious weed. To this day, at the highest levels of creative power, creative executives all talk about three acts. Agents, managers, all manner of industry blowhard talk about three acts. Even, sadly, we screenwriters smoke this nasty weed. In the publishing world, the problem is less pronounced, but it is still an issue. Literary novels, especially, are less prone to this infestation, but commercial, genre fiction is more likely to succumb.

Run, run, run—for your creative lives! Three acts have nothing to do with storytelling. Shake loose this idea and free yourself. Three acts will not serve you or your story, unless you’re a playwright. So, what should you do instead? How should you structure your story?

What story development tool is best for you is a highly personal and complicated issue. There are some good story structure teachers out there (“story gurus”—see my post http://bit.ly/qW9Bww) who have alternative approaches to the three-act structure. Many of them do some modified version of the three or four act structure, but some like the fabulous John Truby (The Anatomy of Story) have created real solutions to the problem. Chris Vogler (The Hero’s Journey) is another. I can’t recommend John Truby highly enough, though. His work is truly seminal in the field. My own methodology is also good (Enneagram-Story Bridge™), but my approach is better suited for building a development foundation that can then be ported over to a more determined system, like Truby's or Vogler's. For now, I will just leave it at that, as this topic of story-structure methodology deserves a more detailed examination all its own—at a later time.

Just know that there are useful alternatives out there and that you will be hugely benefited in your creative process if you just walk away (nay, run) from the model of three acts, and look instead for an approach that focuses on classic story development and not the same ol’ same ol’, story-structure straightjacket.

Now, go be brilliant!