What does Logline mean?
Logline is a one or two sentence summary of a screenplay or television series concept that conveys the central conflict, protagonist, and stakes — designed to communicate the essence of the story in the most compressed and compelling form possible. A well-crafted logline captures who the protagonist is, what they want, what stands in their way, and what is at stake — providing enough information for a reader to understand whether the concept is appealing and commercially viable. Loglines are essential tools for pitching projects, marketing completed films, and evaluating scripts during development.
Example:The producer spent two weeks refining the logline before her first pitch meeting — ‘A twelve-year-old girl discovers her recently deceased grandmother was secretly a spy, and must use the skills she unknowingly inherited to complete her grandmother’s final mission’ — capturing the protagonist, the unique situation, the conflict, and the emotional stakes in two sentences.
Example: The development executive used the logline as her first filter when evaluating submitted scripts — if the concept could not be communicated compellingly in one or two sentences, the project was unlikely to be marketable regardless of the script’s quality.
Did you know?
The logline originated in Hollywood’s studio era when story departments needed efficient ways to evaluate and communicate the vast number of submissions they received. Today a strong logline remains one of the most valuable tools in a writer’s arsenal — the discipline of reducing a complex story to its essential elements forces clarity about what the story is actually about. Writers who cannot logline their own projects often discover in the process that the story’s central concept is less clear than they thought — making logline development a useful diagnostic as well as a marketing tool.
You can also find “Logline” and related terms in this category: Planning and Pre-Production.
