Last year I did a blog post about contests and about composing pitches or ‘loglines’.  In that discussion I summarized what I’d learned from my research about loglines, and illustrated how they may be of different lengths and levels of development, depending on what’s required.  Now I’m digging a little deeper to explore how to write more effective loglines and also how to use them as a tool for looking objectively at a novel — which, among other things, can make it far easier to tackle writing a query letter and a synopsis.

While revisiting the subject of loglines due to the upcoming Baker’s Dozen auction at Miss Snark’s First Victim, I’ve learned some new things that I feel have given me a greater insight into what makes a compelling logline that will grab a reader’s attention. This is mostly thanks to Holly Bodger, aka ‘The Logline Guru’.  In the past few years Holly has imparted her wisdom about loglines at MSFV, both generously offering her comments on all the logline critique rounds and sharing her thoughts in a number of posts about the problems she sees in the participants’ entries.

In her basic guidelines for composing a logline, Holly gives this formula: “When [MAIN CHARACTER] [INCITING INCIDENT], he [CONFLICT].  And if he doesn’t [GOAL] he will [CONSEQUENCES].”  While this exact order may not be what works best for every story, Holly also stresses that “loglines are stronger when they come in the order that has the greatest effect“.  In any case, the capitalized components all need to be included.  And in critiquing loglines it sometimes seems that the best advice is to suggest that the writer go back to the drawing board and use that formula to figure out exactly what those components are in their own book.

Frankly, we often see attempts at loglines that are disjointed and vague and that don’t convey the central arc of the story, as well as leaving out fundamental elements such as the stakes or the goal.  On top of that, composing a logline may illuminate a problem in the manuscript itself.  As Holly says, “If you cannot make your story fit into the required elements of a logline, then maybe you need to re-think whether or not your story has the required elements.”

Not surprisingly, the problems that crop up in loglines are the same issues that also plague many valiant attempts at writing a query. I can’t seem to find the source right now, but I believe Holly recently wrote about how you can take a logline and then flesh out each of the elements in order to construct an effective query.  And I confess I’ve spent a great deal of time in the past five years or so learning everything I can about queries, including reading countless query critiques and doing some critiquing on a couple of different forums.  (I’m sure it may seem a bit crazy to non-writers that we’re all so obsessed with queries, but I suppose it’s inevitable that we end up viewing them as the ‘magic key’ that opens the door to the world of publishing, seeing as they’re required by virtually all agents and by most publishers that accept unagented submissions.)

Last week I was perusing some queries posted for critique, and I found myself thinking that creating a solid logline first, and then building the query onto that framework, really seems like an awfully good idea.  Because one of the major battles I see query writers dealing with is finding that elusive balance between not including enough information and enough specific details to make their story stand out, and including too much information so it’s an overwhelming jumble, full of names and details about subplots that neither contribute to conveying the main story arc nor show the real heart of the book.

Basically, it comes down to not being able to see what belongs in the query and what doesn’t.  Since I think the ‘logline first’ approach may really help in solving that problem, on next month’s blog post I’m going to try taking a logline and showing how a query can be built around it.  (We’ll have to see if I actually succeed!) 😉

The latest insight I’ve gotten from Holly Bodger relates to the internal vs. external story arc, and I think it’s pertinent in many ways when evaluating both loglines and queries — and even the manuscript itself.  I’d noticed that in her comments on loglines, Holly will sometimes ask a question like this: ‘Why does the MC have to be the one who does this thing, and why does she need to do it now?’  This puzzled me when I thought that the answer was apparent enough from the context within the logline.

For example, one story involved a skilled detective pursuing a murderer.  My thought was, ‘If you’re a detective, of course it’s your job to solve the mystery, and the need to find a killer is always urgent, since it’s not exactly something you just do when you get around to it!.’  So I asked Holly if she could clarify why she’d raised this question, and she explained it this way: “There must be a need present in the main character that drives them to pursue that particular goal. Otherwise, there is no internal arc.”  And she pointed out that in the case of that detective, the story would be much stronger if he weren’t simply being paid to solve the crime, but had some personal grievance or deeper motivation compelling him to solve it.

The reason she’ll ask ‘Why now?’ is that it isn’t clear where the story starts in terms of what emotional reason — something truly personal for the MC — has set the story in motion, rather than an inciting incident that’s purely external.  “A story that is only about the selfish need to survive can be done, but it’s never as engaging as one that has deeper motivation.  Also, when you add these extra motivations and give them timelines, you add a lot more tension to your novel because the reader knows the clock is ticking and not just for the main character.”  She summed up by saying, “Basically, in almost all my critiques, I am trying to get people to expose more of their internal arc (without losing the external one, of course!)”

I find this particularly interesting because one of the things I’ve struggled with is the fact that today’s standard formula for queries is best suited to books that are primarily plot-driven.  Consequently, it can seem quite daunting to figure out how to fit literary fiction into that formula.  And when I say ‘literary fiction’, I’m using Nathan Bransford’s definition that says that in literary fiction the plot tends to happen ‘beneath the surface’ rather than ‘above the surface’, and that “what is really important are the thoughts, desires, and motivations of the characters as well as the underlying social and cultural threads that act upon them.”  By that definition (as well as some others), all of my books are essentially literary fiction that also happens to be SF or fantasy.

And I’ve realized that we’ve all been conditioned to think that the external stuff that ‘happens’ is what a story is ‘about’, so we think that’s what has to go into the query — and the logline as well. The result is that we may end up both misrepresenting our stories and making it sound as if they’re missing something.  And I believe this focus on the external elements of the plot is one of the reasons that after hours of studying queries they all start to look the same and get downright dull — which makes me feel awfully sorry for literary agents, since I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if I had to read hundreds of queries every week!

But I’ll bet that nine times out of ten the personal element is actually in the book itself (even with stories that are more plot-driven), and it’s just not getting into the query. However, just as constructing a logline can reveal if any of the required elements are missing in the novel, when you start by trying to identify the character’s personal need, this may also uncover problems with the internal arc — it could be that the character hasn’t been fully developed and the story is too superficial.

I often say that the difference between telling stories around a campfire and creating literature is that in a good novel you’re not just telling a story, you’re recreating the experience of being human.  I also say that I find stories about finding one’s place in the universe far more interesting than stories about saving the universe.  So it makes perfect sense to me that showing part of that internal arc as well as the external one will make both loglines and queries more emotionally engaging and memorable.

Recently I learned of a contest called Write Club. Unlike most other online writing contests that I’ve seen, this one is mostly just for fun, rather than designed to help connect authors with agents or editors. Apparently it’s been going on for at least several years, and has even been copied by others who’ve created similar contests.

The inspiration for the contest is Fight Club, so the rules are modeled on the Fight Club rules, which is rather cute. It even includes Rule Six: No shirt, no shoes. That’s a joke, of course (no one expects the authors to refrain from wearing a shirt or shoes while writing)! Though in my case, if that were an actual rule I’d already be partly in compliance; since I can’t stand wearing shoes in the house, I almost always write without shoes. 😉

I confess that although I’m definitely a Brad Pitt fan, I’m not really a big fan of that film. I saw it just once and while I didn’t dislike it, it’s not something I’d be interested in watching again. I suppose most people would say that the quintessential masculine version of a ‘chick flick’ is something like the Die Hard films, filled with intense action and things blowing up from the first moment to the last. But I might say that Fight Club is a more intellectual form of a ‘guy movie’; it certainly has a lot more depth, but I would guess it still tends to have more appeal for men than women.

Although I understand that the film is meant to have a fair amount of dark humor, I admit I still have a suspension of disbelief issue with the idea of someone being able to get into a bare-fisted boxing match with themselves, no matter what sort of split personality or other delusional disorder they might have! (It’s no surprise that the scene that shows this in the movie is so absurd that it becomes purely comical.) But I believe the real issue for me is that I generally dislike it when a writer — in this case, Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the novel the film is based on — has characters behave in an unrealistic manner or has something contrived happen in the plot solely for thematic reasons.

One becomes too conscious of the author’s deliberate efforts to illustrate the theme; it’s almost as if Palahniuk broke the ‘fourth wall’ and stepped into his book to make the point that men’s issues with their role models and their position in society causes then to be embroiled in a struggle with themselves, and the story just becomes a transparent vehicle for the message. Perhaps due partly to my obsession with realism, I find it more effective — and also a greater display of the writer’s skill — when a story feels very natural and believable, and the underlying themes are only apparent upon reflection, or even only upon rereading the book.

To get back to the Write Club contest, I’m curious about following it and seeing how it plays out. I would guess that in such a context the most competitive writing samples will be those with fairly accessible and immediate entertainment value, particularly humorous ones. But I would be pretty disappointed if the actual quality of the writing and the evident skill of the author weren’t also instrumental in determining the eventual winner.

I’ve recently discovered a number of fun contests designed to give authors a different way to get their pitch — and hopefully their manuscript itself — seen by agents.  (One good source for learning about upcoming contests is the Sub It Club.)  The gals who run these contests certainly deserve kudos for all the hard work they put in, and it’s nice to see that it looks like they usually have a lot of fun doing it, too.

It’s something I’d like to consider doing myself down the road — though I’ll probably want to enlist the help of someone more computer and web savvy to help with the logistics.  And speaking of logistics, I’ve learned a lot about loglines in the past few weeks, thanks to all the great information at Miss Snark’s First Victim, a delightful site with lots of resources for writers, as well as great contests, including the monthly ‘Secret Agent’ contest.  (And there’s quite a few success stories posted on the site, showing that the process really does work to connect writers and agents.)

One of the challenging things about writing loglines — which are required for entry in many of these contests — is that there are so many different definitions floating around as to just what a logline is and how long it should be.  My conclusion is that the answer depends on who’s asking for the logline, and what they’re looking for.  Some people want a logline that’s no more than 25 words, while the logline critiques at Miss Snarks’s First Victim permit up to 100 words (although they stress that shorter is better).  And the Halloween-themed Trick or Treat with an Agent Contest going on this week asks writers for a three-sentence pitch, with no word count restriction.

So my recommendation is to prepare several loglines of different lengths.  This is an excellent exercise anyway, and can help with writing queries as well.  Then you just have to carefully read the instructions for any contest or critique session you want to participate in, and make sure you submit the pitch that fulfills their requirements.

Now, in case this is helpful to anyone else, I’m going to use the novel I’m querying as a guinea pig, and show some examples of different loglines for the same book.  In some ways this is like the Snowflake Method of novel outlining.  Or perhaps it’s like peeling an onion — you start on the surface and go down through the layers, adding more and more detail as you add more words.  But no matter what the length, the logline or pitch should be enticing — and never confusing.  (Alas, most of us find that accomplishing this is much easier said than done!)

10 words: A young man who’s an outcast struggles to find acceptance.    (This is the extreme end of ‘concise’, and more of an exercise than a logline — there’s definitely not enough detail here for any kind of pitch contest!  Notice that it could describe a million different stories.)

22 words: A young man who’s the only one of his race in an isolated village on a planetary colony struggles to find acceptance.  (This is more like a TV guide blurb.  Like the first, it could apply to a lot of stories, but it narrows it down a touch by adding some details — for instance, now we know it’s science fiction.)

46 words: A young man who’s the only one of his race in an isolated village struggles to find acceptance.  After demonstrating his skill with a bow gives the villagers an excuse to perceive him as a threat, the arrival of a stranger puts his life in danger.   (This is one I toyed with briefly — notice that it leaves out the fact that this takes place on a planetary colony, which might be problematic since it’s not obvious this is SF.  The ending — the part about the stranger’s arrival putting him in danger — is also a bit vague.)

61 words: On a small planetary colony, a young man comes of age while struggling to find acceptance in an isolated arctic village where he’s the only one of his race.   When he’s blamed for the murder of two elders, staying alive may mean fleeing the village to seek his own people–people he knows only from tales of their arrogance and cruelty.  (This one is better because it gives the specific reason his life is in danger — he’s been accused of murder — and adds more detail that shows how the villagers view the people of his race, which (hopefully!) explains why they would have trouble accepting him.)

65 words: On a small planetary colony, a young man struggles to find acceptance in an isolated arctic village where he’s the only one of his race, but demonstrating his prowess with a bow only gives the villagers another excuse to perceive him as a threat, and when he’s blamed for the murder of two elders, he may have to leave everything he knows to stay alive.   (Another variation that shifts the focus a little, showing one of the ways he tries to win approval, and how it backfires.  I was concerned that this was important to avoid making the character seem like a passive victim — he’s actually very strong-willed and stubborn, and the way he spends several years teaching himself to become the best archer in the village is one of the important ‘coming of age’ elements in the novel.  But you can see how it’s hard to squeeze something like that into a logline.) 

67 words: Growing up in an isolated arctic village where he’s the only one of his race, Jem is shunned by nearly everyone.  His skill with a bow brings him confidence and pride–and more distrust from the villagers.  When he’s blamed for the murder of two elders, survival may mean leaving to seek the people he knows only from tales of their arrogance and cruelty.   (Another variation, using the MC’s name this time — which is often preferable, because it makes it more intimate.  However, this also leaves out the planetary colony reference.)

76 words: Born in an isolated arctic village on a small planetary colony, Jem has never met anyone of his own race — the arrogant people from an advanced starfaring civilization who banished the original colonists to the harsh settlement.  Jem struggles to be accepted, but demonstrating his skill with a bow gives the villagers another excuse to distrust him.  When he’s blamed for the murder of two elders, survival may mean seeking a new life among the feared invaders.  (This is my three-sentence pitch, which uses a different angle to provide more detail on Jem’s own people and the socio-political situation.)    

I have other versions that go up to 89 words, but I think that’s a bit long for a logline — at least for any of the contests I’ve seen — so I’ll stop there.  Please understand that I’m not claiming that any of these are brilliant — I’m still working on crafting better ones — but I hope that showing the ‘anatomy of a logline’ will be helpful to others who are struggling through the same process.