Turning the Logline Into a Story
Last week, I talked about writing a logline. It’s a single sentence summary that tells enough of your story to get people interested, and it’s my first step in writing a short story or novel.
I left the article with a few questions unanswered. What about the end? How do you take a single sentence and turn it into a whole story? I’ll answer that here.
I’ll start with a logline that I wrote. It’s a good example of how I use this tool. I may not ever use this logline, but here it is:
When he’s assigned to a strange planet, a young diplomat from Earth must foil a corrupt politician’s plot before it ignites an interplanetary war.
So, we have all the right parts in this line. We have our protagonist and an adjective to describe him: a young diplomat from Earth. We have an inciting incident: he’s assigned to a strange planet. We have his objective: to foil a corrupt politician’s plot. And, finally, we have the stakes and big clock: before it ignites an interplanetary war.
Now let’s turn that into a story. The first thing to explain is that I’m going to make a simple mini-outline of the story structure. It goes like this:
Ordinary World
Inciting Incident
Objective:
Midpoint
Disaster
Turning Point
Climax
Denouement
I realize there are a lot of story structures out there like The Hero’s Journey and Save the Cat, and those have more phases than I’m giving you here. For instance, there’s no Threshold Guardian, Bad Guys Close In or Long Dark Night of the Soul. I get that. Those other phases will come in time. For the purpose of this exercise, those are the only ones we need.
So, let’s start with two things that are really clear. We already know the Inciting Incident and the Objective:
Ordinary World
Inciting Incident: He’s assigned to a strange planet
Objective: Foil a corrupt politician’s plot
Midpoint
Disaster
Turning Point
Climax
Denouement
Actually, we also know a couple more. The description of the character in the logline is actually all you need for the Ordinary World. We just need to spend the Ordinary World phase showing that the character is young and inexperienced and that he’s a fish out of water on this weird new planet. The Stakes and Big Clock can go in the Disaster slot:
Ordinary World: A young diplomat from Earth
Inciting Incident: He’s assigned to a strange planet
Objective: Foil a corrupt politician’s plot
Midpoint
Disaster: It ignites an interplanetary war
Turning Point
Climax
Denouement
Yes. The disaster happens in the story. It may sound counterintuitive that the one thing the character is trying to avoid actually happens, but that actually makes for a better story. Throw your protagonist in a hole they can’t easily get out of. Complicates things. Don’t make it easy for them.
The next ones are a bit harder and require some creative thought. Let’s tackle the Denouement. You just need to decide how your character changes. For this one, I’m just going to say the character becomes the opposite of what he is in the beginning so…
Ordinary World: An inexperienced young diplomat from Earth
Inciting Incident: He’s assigned to a strange planet
Objective: Foil a corrupt politician’s plot
Midpoint
Disaster: It ignites an interplanetary war
Turning Point
Climax
Denouement: A mature young diplomat from Earth has gained valuable experience in this new world.
So, what needs to happen for him to gain that newfound experience and maturity? Also, how does that help him achieve his objective? Once I figure that out, I’ll add it to the Turning Point line:
Ordinary World: An inexperienced young diplomat from Earth
Inciting Incident: He’s assigned to a strange planet
Objective: Foil a corrupt politician’s plot
Midpoint
Disaster: It ignites an interplanetary war
Turning Point: Until he speaks out against his superiors and tells the authorities about the plot he’s uncovered.
Climax:
Denouement: A mature young diplomat from Earth has gained valuable experience in this new world.
So now this is a story about a young, impressionable person learning to stand up to authority. See, we’re getting a theme started here.
Now, let’s turn the attention toward the Midpoint. At the midpoint of a story, there’s usually a big plot twist. If I think about what the plot twist might be, I realize we have him speaking out against his superiors in the Turning Point, so the Midpoint plot twist should probably be the character’s discovery that his bosses at the embassy are involved in the plot. So…
Ordinary World: An inexperienced young diplomat from Earth
Inciting Incident: He’s assigned to a strange planet
Objective: Foil a corrupt politician’s plot
Midpoint: Finds out his superiors at the embassy are behind the plot
Disaster: He’s captured by the alien authorities and the galaxy collapses into total war.
Turning Point: Until he speaks out against his superiors and tells the authorities about the plot he’s uncovered
Climax:
Denouement: A mature young diplomat from Earth has gained valuable experience in this new world.
I modified the Disaster after adding the Midpoint. It just made sense to add the detail about the alien authorities.
So now all we need to fill in is the Climax. We could get pretty imaginative with this one. It should be not only logical to the story, but also exciting for the reader. What if the corrupt politician and his cronies in the embassy come after our hero directly and he and one of the alien police officers who arrested him fight them off? That might get exciting. So let’s add that:
Ordinary World: An inexperienced young diplomat from Earth
Inciting Incident: He’s assigned to a strange planet
Objective: Foil a corrupt politician’s plot
Midpoint: Finds out his superiors at the embassy are behind the plot
Disaster: He’s captured by the alien authorities and the galaxy collapses into total war.
Turning Point: Until he speaks out against his superiors and tells the authorities about the plot he’s uncovered
Climax: Pursued and trapped, he and one of the arresting alien police officers must fight for their lives against the corrupt politician and his cronies.
Denouement: A mature young diplomat from Earth has gained valuable experience in this new world.
So now that’s a very short synopsis of the story. Hopefully, you can see clearly how this could be a very easy way to start turning a good logline into a great story. After this, I’ll use this simple mini-outline to create an expanded three-act outline and off we go.
