Writers in the Storm

by Eldred Bird

When I first started writing, I remember someone asking me what my book was about. I stammered and stalled, trying to think about how to best describe it.

“Um…it’s about this guy, see? He um…well…he’s kind of a…”

“Just give me your elevator pitch.”

I stood there like a deer caught in the headlights.

“You know, your logline.”

“Logline? What’s a logline?”

Thus began my real education as an author. That was the day I learned it wasn’t just about writing books, but also being able to talk to people about what I’d written. I needed to be ready at any moment to clearly and coherently communicate the bones of my story. And that, my friends, is the logline.

What is a Logline?

Some people use the terms Logline and Tagline interchangeably. Those people are wrong. For more on that, you can read Laura Drake’s explanation here.

In the simplest terms, the log line is a brief summary of your story—we’re talking very brief—like one or two sentences brief. Sounds difficult, right? How do you condense a whole book into something you can get out in one breath? Let’s take a look.

What is a Logline Good For?

The logline is kind of the Swiss Army Knife of writing tools. If you talk to anyone in Hollywood about your story, the first thing they will ask you for is your logline. It’s the fuel that runs the engine of the entertainment industry.

Your logline is the key that cracks the door open just enough to make your pitch, but it can be a lot more.

As Marcy Kennedy pointed out in her post, creating a logline can help you focus on the important elements of your story. If you can, do it before you sit down to your keyboard. Printing it out and keeping it in front of you as you write can help you stay on track if, like me, you tend to wander off a lot.

I’m not saying you have to be one hundred percent be locked in once you create your logline. Feel free to modify and evolve it as you write, but think hard about those changes before making them.

Some Examples from Hollywood

A doctor wrongly convicted of killing his wife escapes custody and struggles to prove his innocence while being pursued by a relentless U.S. Marshal.  – The Fugitive

An epic tale of a 1940s New York Mafia family and their struggle to protect their empire, as the leadership switches from the father to his youngest son. – The Godfather

A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage at sea. - Titanic

What goes into a Logline?

There are three basic elements you need to include in your logline:

• your main character
• your plot
• what’s at stake

The Main Character (MC) – Who is your main character? Not their name, but a defining characteristic. Names don’t matter at this point because we have nothing to attach them to. We need adjectives, strong descriptive adjectives. Is your MC a reclusive writer? A disgraced ex-cop? A teenage mutant ninja turtle? Get out your thesaurus and paint me a picture with a couple of well chosen words.

The Plot – What’s happening in your story? Think of your inciting incident—the hammer that hits your MC on the head and puts them on the path of no return. What is your MC’s objective? What’s standing in their way? In many cases, the character is their own roadblock. Success may hinge on overcoming internal struggles and their own fears.

The Stakes – What’s at risk should your MC fail to reach their objective? Is it death, world destruction, or the loss of their sanity? Including a ticking time-bomb can up the tension. If your MC doesn’t do A before B happens, then the consequences are C.

Putting the Elements Together

Okay, I’m not really a fan of formulas when it comes to writing, but this is one of the rare exceptions. Not that plugging your story elements into a formula will magically give you an amazing logline, but it will give you a good head start—a first draft you can shape and polish. Once you’ve identified the elements listed above, try plugging them into this formula:

When [INCITING INCIDENT OCCURS], a [SPECIFIC PROTAGONIST] must [OBJECTIVE], or else [STAKES].

Pretty simple, right? Let’s plug something in and see what we get.

When his agent forces his hand, a reclusive writer must become more like the adventurous character he has created, or risk losing his livelihood.

It’s a little rough around the edges, but now we have a logline for my first book, Killing Karma. No more panic when someone asks…well, maybe a little panic, but it’s a start.

This first draft forced me to think about the story elements. Was the inciting incident really the agent forcing his hand? Was becoming like his MC driving the plot? The answer was no. Coming up with a log line forced this pantser to take a hard look at his story and dive into the true meat of it. In the end, this is how the finished logline came out.

The death of his over-protective mother forces a reclusive writer to find a way to survive in a world with which he is ill-equipped to deal.

The Main Character – A reclusive writer.

The inciting incident - The death of his mother.

The Stakes – The MC’s very survival.

This is much more focused and highlights the true roots of the story. And this brings me to my next point.

Other Uses for Your Logline

Having the main elements of your story identified and in front of you can give you a leg up on some of the steps that happen after you complete your manuscript. Your logline is the foundation of your sales toolbox. It can be crafted into many other tools.

Expand your single sentence story into a four or five sentence pitch. Keep it on a note card until you know it by heart. You never know when someone will ask.

Your logline and tagline are a great starting point for your book blurb. Make sure to add in that ticking time-bomb, but no spoilers!

Use the logline in your query letters to get the point across quickly and catch an agent’s attention.

Loglines are a great launching point for your advertising. Building your ads with the logline in mind will help to keep your branding consistent.

Some Final Words

Whether you’re a pantser or plotter, a logline is a great tool to have at your disposal, both during and after you write you book. It’s a motivator, a sales pitch and a guidebook for your writing journey. Put as much care into your log line as you do your manuscript and it will serve you well.

About Eldred

Eldred Bird writes contemporary fiction, short stories, and personal essays. He has spent a great deal of time exploring the deserts, forests, and deep canyons inside his home state of Arizona. His James McCarthy adventures, Killing Karma and Catching Karma, reflect this love of the Grand Canyon State even as his character solves mysteries amidst danger. Eldred explores the boundaries of short fiction in his stories, The Waking Room and Treble in Paradise: A tale of Sax and Violins.

When he’s not writing, Eldred spends time cycling, hiking and juggling (yes, juggling…bowling balls and 21 inch knives). His passion for photography allows him to record his travels. He can be found on Twitter or Facebook, or at his website: http://www.eldredbird.com/.

by Becca Puglisi

As writers, we all know how difficult it can be to win readers over. The writing has to be strong, the events realistic, the characters well-rounded, etc. etc. We know the list of barriers to reader engagement, and there are ample resources available to address the usual suspects.

But what if that barrier is a pivotal piece of the story itself? Maybe the main character is an unsympathetic one that readers aren’t likely to empathize with or root for. Or we might be taking a political or social stance on an issue that many readers find unappealing.

Situations like these add another layer of complexity because for people to read that story, their perspective must first be challenged. We have to get them liking the miserable protagonist. We have to present a current event from a different angle that gets them thinking about it in a new way. Without that shift in perspective, readers won’t buy in, and the story, no matter how well it’s written, is going to gather dust.

So how do we make that happen? One of the easiest ways is by using the rest of the cast.

This became clear to me during the latest season of Stranger Things. Max’s stepbrother Billy has never had a whole lot going for him. He’s abusive and treats everyone like crap. When he comes on the scene in season two, viewers universally don’t like him very much.

But season three adds a new dimension to his profile: sex appeal. Like, massive. But how? How do we get from What a jerk to Dude, he’s totally hot in such a short span of time?

And then it hit me. It’s the cast. Viewers fell in line because of the rest of the cast.

The high school girls in Hawkins were already swooning, and that’s to be expected, because Billy’s got the whole Bad Boy thing going on. But writers upped the ante in season three. The first episode finds Billy working as a lifeguard at the local pool, where all the neighborhood moms have come to ogle him. The moms are ogling. They’re putting on their skimpiest suits and timing their arrival so they can eye him over their Ray-Bans as he makes his entrance. Every female over a certain age is suddenly drooling over Billy Hargrove.

This was fascinating to me because I never really thought of him as sex symbol material (awesome car and Screw You attitude notwithstanding). But we all bought into it because the rest of the cast told us to. If they’re all saying the same thing, and we haven’t seen it, then we must have missed something. And we should, therefore, get on board. Peripheral characters can be super influential in this way. If you need to sway readers’ opinions about a character, use the rest of the cast to lead them where you want them to go.

Interestingly enough, this method works just as well for ideas and concepts.

One of the few books I still have from my childhood was about Robin Hood. Those stories fascinated me; I mean, he was such a good guy, looking out for the poor and fighting the dictatorial powers-that-be. I was into my teens before it fully occurred to me that the hero I’d been rooting for was a thief and a criminal.

These facts don’t stop people from loving him. The Robin Hood legend originated in the 14^th century and is constantly being reinvented and explored through books, song, movie, and who knows what other formats. Most people admire him—even while believing that stealing is morally wrong and order in society should be upheld. Yet we suspend judgment in his case. Why?

Partly because the other characters in and around Nottingham all loved Robin Hood. If they weren’t venturing into Sherwood to join him, they were supporting him in his anti-establishment campaign. After all, he wasn’t stealing to benefit himself; he was stealing to help them—the impoverished and undervalued. And he’s stealing from bad guys, the ones who are actively mistreating the common people. When you look at it from their perspective, what he’s doing isn’t bad, right? It’s actually good.

And voilá! A hero is born.

I found another example of this in a recent read called The Boneless Mercies. In a Viking-esque setting, Frey leads a band of girls who make their living by committing mercy killings. Would someone in your family be better off dead? You want to die yourself? Hire Frey, and her Mercies will take care of it.

Sounds pretty out there, right? Like, how could that ever be a legitimate thing? But because the people of this world place a high value on bravery and dying a good death, and because they view the concept of mercy killings as acceptable, the idea becomes believable and a natural part of the fictional landscape. Readers may not embrace it, but it’s no longer a barrier to entry.

These examples showed me that the secondary characters in a story can be very powerful in influencing reader opinion. Authors who need to challenge the reader’s ideas can deftly wield these characters as tools. And the process is really quite simple.

First, endow the cast members with the beliefs, ideals, or opinions that you want your reader to share or at least consider. Have the rest of the characters admire the bad guy in some way. Make them sympathetic to an unpopular idea. Let them approach existing social or political ideas from a different viewpoint. The more naturally you can do this, the better. Don’t make a big statement; just show that this is normal for the cast, and it’s more likely to become normalized for the reader.

For instance, The Boneless Mercies opens with Frey’s band at work. It’s a peaceful scene, with the mark being completely at ease as Frey makes her comfortable—offering her wine, discussing the woman’s life, using soft words and gentle touches. And somewhere in the scene, we see these lines: She’d hired us herself. Her husband, children—all dead from sickness.

Without a lot of fanfare, and through the context of what’s happening, the author shows us that this woman wants to die. It’s a mercy killing, and it seems to be somewhat normal, just a matter of course. From page one, readers learn that this is part of the culture. They’re able to suspend their own judgment for this particular story.

Secondly, remember that readers will be more likely to change their stance if the author provides that all-important empathy piece. Billy Hargrove’s backstory of abuse makes it easier for us to view him positively. Robin Hood’s policy of theft and wealth distribution is more palatable because of the environment of injustice it seeks to resolve. Years of gently killing the old, feeble, and infirm have taken their toll on Frey’s Mercies, infringing on their basic human needs of esteem and self-actualization; this humanization makes them relatable and easy to empathize with. Research your setting, the character’s backstory, and their flaws and weaknesses so you’ll know which bits are most likely to pull the reader’s heartstrings, and be sure to include that information.

Listen, writing is hard. Telling a story about concepts or characters that readers find repugnant is even harder. But those stories are still worth telling. Empower your cast with the role of challenging your reader’s perspective, and the job will become a whole lot easier.

About Becca

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of books for writers—including her latest publication: a second edition of The Emotion Thesaurus, an updated and expanded version of the original volume. 

Her books are available in multiple languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling. 

NaNoWriMo, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is National Novel Writing Month, where hundreds of thousands of writers gather to bang out many many words in a month. Many writers skip it and many writers treat it as a yearly pilgrimage to Writing Mecca.

NaNoWriMo is my birthday present to myself each year. Every year, I love it. And every year, I hate it...there's simply too much to do in the tiny little month of November. Why isn't it in January? There's nothing going on then.

I tend to arrive at December 1st a little bit out of breath. And still, I love NaNo.

I love the community, the late-night writing sprints, the before and after parties my local team throws. I love the write-ins, the pep talks, the excitement and uploading my word count. I adore getting the chance to encourage my peeps and watch everyone chase their goals.

Whether you're gearing up for NaNoWriMo or not, I wish you luck in your writing goals this month.

If you're feeling the push to "Go 50K or Bust" you are going to love browsing the new website at https://nanowrimo.org/ . They have totally upped their game over there!

The pep talks are still there, under Writer's Resources in the main menu, but there is also a "NaNo Prep" section that is amazeballs. It is like a mini-NaNoWriMo online class.

Seriously. They now have a NaNo Prep Handbook. Yowza! (Where was that thing 10 years ago when I started?)

So far I've spotted:

• Targeted forum discussions with a schedule. Although we missed most of that, you can still go browse the threads.

The Course Outline

1. Develop a Story Idea (September 9-13)
2. Create Complex Characters (September 16-20)
3. Construct a Detailed Plot or Outline (September 23-27)
4. Build a Strong World (September 30 – October 4)
5. Organize Your Life for Writing! (October 7-11)
6. Find and Manage Your Time (October 14-18)

• There's also exercises to complete
• Social accounts to follow
• Progress stickers and writing buddy contracts
• Webinars to listen to
• A "somewhat binding magical contract
• Blog posts - my fave so far is 20 Questions to Ask Yourself When World Building.

And my favorite...an infographic on "caring for a NaNoWriMo writer" - found here.

I told you. Upped. Their. Game. Even if you don't do NaNo, I recommend that NaNo Prep 101 page. The only thing I miss on the new site is the old "Writing Sprints Timer." So far, I haven't found those but I've sent in a Help Desk question. Here's a list of Word Sprint tools...even though the NaNo one doesn't work anymore. *sob*

But let's not forget about those tips, for all of you who love lists.

Behold...the NaNo Team's "Tips for Successful WriMos"

1. It’s okay to not know what you’re doing. Really. You’ve read a lot of novels, so you’re completely up to the challenge of writing one. (Yes, you can laugh at that.)

2. If you feel more comfortable outlining your story ahead of time, do it! But it’s also fine to just wing it.

3. Write every day, and a book-worthy story will appear, even if you’re not sure what that story might be right now.

4. Do not edit as you go. Editing is for December and beyond. Think of November as an experiment in pure output.

5. Even if it’s hard at first, leave ugly prose and poorly written passages on the page to be cleaned up later. Your inner editor will be very grumpy about this, but your inner editor is a nitpicky jerk who foolishly believes that it is possible to write a brilliant first draft if you write it slowly enough. It isn’t.

6. Every book you’ve ever loved started out as a beautifully flawed first draft. In November, embrace imperfection and see where it takes you.

7. Tell everyone you know that you’re writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who’ve had to hear about your novel for the past month.

8. Seriously. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse.

9. There will be times you’ll want to quit during November. This is okay. Everyone who wins NaNoWriMo wanted to quit at some point in November. Stick it out. See it through.

Above are the NaNo team's words. They have them squinched together into just a few tips, but I spread it out. All this wisdom needs to be heard. (There's years of writing pep talks here.)

Now, for #10, which comes to you from the always-awesome Chuck Wendig.

10. Two-for-one on writing advice - Write and Finish.

Writing requires writing.
Writing requires finishing.

That advice is harder than it looks. As always, I love the way he puts it:

"It helps to look at your NaNoWriMo novel as the zero draft — it has a beginning, it has an ending, it has a whole lot of something in the middle. The puzzle pieces are all on the table and, at the very least, you’ve got an image starting to come together (“is that a dolphin riding side-saddle on a mechanical warhorse through a hail of lasers?”).

"But the zero draft isn’t done cooking. A proper first draft awaits. A first draft that will see more meat slapped onto those exposed bones, taking your word count into more realistic territory."

Now, before I jump down to visit with y'all in the comments, I'd like to address the dreaded phenomenon of the Week Two Wall in the NaNo challenge.

This is that spooky time when the initial endorphins have faded and the grind of the 1,667 words-a-day writing schedule sets in. When the shiny has worn right off our fabulous idea. Words like "can't," "shouldn't," and "haven't" begin to rear their ugly heads. 

We all hate those words, whether we're doing a writing challenge or not. So before NaNo starts, I'd like to chat about what I consider to be a NaNo "win":

• Your very best = a NaNo win
• Achieving your goal numbers = a NaNo win (ex: my goal this month is 30K, not 50K)
• Finishing a project = a NaNo win
• Forming amazing writing habits = a NaNo win

I think people get twitchy about some things that don't matter during the month of November. You've seen this fabulous cartoon from InkyGirl, right?

NaNo should be fun.

The only word count that matters is YOURS. So, go forth and write your story. Enjoy the hell out of it...that's what NaNoWriMo is all about.

Do you participate in writing challenges? Do you do NaNoWriMo? For my WriMo pals, what do you do in advance of November to get ready?

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About Jenny Hansen

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 18 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at JennyHansenCA or at Writers In The Storm.