James Marson

Author and Screenwriter

Tag: Logline

Capturing your Screenplay Idea in One Line – Part 1

2016-08-22 /

Of course you can’t compress your idea into one line, can you?

Well here’s the bad news. You’ll have to.

At some point someone is going to ask you to summarise your project in one line. Usually with a 140 character limit. This is a recent thing stolen from Twitter but at least it stops writers creating the kind of tortuous sentence that leaves a reader gasping for breath even if they haven’t read it out loud, just to make sure they’ve covered everything.

So, you might as well do it up front.

For this, I take the advice of a couple of experts who definitely pointed me in the right direction here.

Firstly here’s a great technique for catching your ideas in a form that makes them juicy and enticing.

It’s from advice by the marvellous Stephanie Palmer. Stephanie writes an insider blog on the business of being a screen writer and offers great advice to about how the system works. This is mostly the US Studio system but more and more these days the UK recognises this as a good way to work. Only without the studio system they have over there.

I would urge you to check out Stephanie’s Site  – Good in a Room. Not now obviously! Bookmark it or something. Thanks.

Anyway Stephanie says you should capture your idea in the following form, which is a little bit how you would describe it to anyone else:

My story is a [GENRE] called [TITLE] about a [HERO](in a situation) who wants [GOAL] despite [OBSTACLE].

(full glorious post here ). Same rules on running off. This is the important bit here:

Do this for every one of your ideas. Write them all down. Then look closely at them. Does it have a clear genre? Medium ?(TV, Film, Radio) AND Genre? (Comedy, Sitcom, Family Drama, Crime Drama). Does the title MAKE SENSE with everything else? Do you have a single LEAD CHARACTER? Of course if it’s an ensemble piece the HERO can be a group… Do they WANT something tangible? Are they properly OPPOSED? Is there going to be some, or better LOTS, of CONFLICT (which is basically the single most crucial thing EVERY story needs.)

If you have made good decisions about all 5 elements here – chances are you’ve got something you want to write! If not – you have a problem. You won’t know it yet, but if you have a weak element in these 5 areas then your story will be flimsy and will fall apart in the writing, the explaining or the selling.

Here’s a (bad) example:

My story is a show called “Chocolate” about a group of people working in a call centre.

Okay, here we go.

That's right we're going to tear it apart

That’s right we’re going to tear it apart

      1. Show? What is it? Theatre? TV? Reality TV? Is it meant to be funny.  Am I meant to laugh? Or be scared? Be better than that. Give me detail. Detail is what brings something visually to life. All writers have to be POETS. You have to learn HOW TO DESCRIBE SOMETHING VERY SPECIFIC IN AS FEW WORDS AS POSSIBLE. Use what I call visually explosive words. Be as specific as possible. Identify brand. I learned this reading the pilot screenplay for Breaking Bad but I should have learned it much sooner. Find it online. Read the action – Vince Gilligan calls out VERY SPECIFIC things we SEE. So distilled detail is what we’re aiming for here:

        My story is a TV sitcom called “Chocolate” about a group of people working in a call centre.

      2. Title? Chocolate? Why the fuck is it called Chocolate? “Oh because their lives revolve around talking about their favourite chocolate.” No good. It needs to be clear why it’s called what it’s called, without having to offer up an explanation. It’s needs to change to something more relevant. How about “Call Me”? So now we have:

        My story is a TV sitcom called “Call Me” about a group of people working in a call centre.

Hero? Who’s it about? What sort of people are they? Focussing on one character makes things clearer so why not pick a twenty-something woman. Why her? Well perhaps a reverse engineer from the title – call me? Maybe she’s looking for love and ends up fantasising about the lives of the people she talks to.

My story is a TV sitcom called “Call Me” about a day-dreamy twenty-something girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with the people she talks to.

Now she has a goal (to find love) and there is sort of a conflict between reality and fantasy – but it would be even better if there’s a tangible real world antagonist… How about her (…who would be the worst person..) – a sleazy office manager? Or a love-lorn friend. I’ll pick the latter as it feels less likely to be uncomfortable.

My story is a TV sitcom called “Call Me” about a day-dreamy twenty-something girl working in a call centre, who fantasises about falling in love with the people she talks to while managing her love-lorn friend.

(And the more astute of you will realise this is more than 140 characters so if I only had the Twitter pitch I could use the following (you can drop the title because you’ve usually given it, and arguably you’ve already mentioned the genre:

Sitcom about a girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with her callers while looking after her love-lorn friend.

or

Sitcom about a incurably romantic girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with the people she talks to.

Both sell the idea – but capture it for yourself using the single sentence rule above.

Either way – which of the following can you SEE?

Sitcom about a girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with her callers while advising her love-lorn friend.

vs.

Sitcom called “Chocolate” about a group of people working in a call centre.

And the most important thing is to capture the most inspiring version of this idea… one that when you come back to it, you’ll immediately think “YES I WANT TO WRITE THIS NOW!”

Start with a simple idea… then surround it with the right elements to make it burst into life.

Do this, do this for every idea you have.

Save them in the one document so when you think you’re running out of ideas, come back to them. I currently have over 60 of these… From ideas for horror films to one-off TV dramas to situation comedies.

Don’t have blank pages… have stacks and stacks of butterflies, all safely captured in such a way that shows off their beauty in the best light….

Right, I’m off to write a TV Sitcom about a day-dreaming girl working in a call centre who fantasises about falling in love with the people she talks to, while tending to her love-lorn friend.

🙂

How Do I Know I’ve Got A Great Idea For a Show?

2016-08-21 /

You don’t.

Here’s the truth: No-one does.

As brilliant screenwriter and guru William Goldman once said – “No-one in Hollywood knows anything”.

People think they do otherwise they wouldn’t spend millions of dollars/pounds/bitcoins making what they’re convinced is a hit movie or TV show. They just wouldn’t. Every penny invested in making a movie or TV show is done so because someone thinks it’s going to make them lots of money.

You’ll have realised that “making lots of money” isn’t the same as “being a great TV show”.  And there’s the problem. Unless you have an idea that someone thinks is going to make money, it isn’t going to get made. This is true of publishing, theatre or any other form of writing.

So if no-one knows anything, how do you give your brilliant idea the best chance of getting made?

Well, here is the curious dichotomy of the creative world. And it all comes down to the following:

Originality vs Forecast

I’ll unpack that statement.

One one side, audiences (and producers and commissioners) love originality. Who doesn’t? A new character we haven’t seen a million times before, a new setting, a glimpse into a world that we have no idea about, a new moral lesson about the world we live in now, a fresh perspective. We yearn for new experiences. The novel (as in new) is exciting! If you are going to write – YOU have to write. You have to write AS YOU. You have to write ABOUT THINGS YOU CARE ABOUT, about places YOU KNOW ABOUT. Your job is to come up with brilliant new ideas and stories from your imagination. NEVER FORGET THAT. This is yours.

On the other side, if someone is going to lay several million pounds on the table to make a TV Show or a movie then they better have some idea it’s going to work.

How can they possibly know that?

Well, this is where formula and forecasting come in. And here are the main rules:

  1. Things that were well received before, stand a good chance of being well received again. (hence Sequels and Franchises)
  2. Movies and TV Shows that follow certain formulas and tick certain boxes tend to result in higher audience satisfaction and therefore viewing figures/sales (more on this in later posts)
  3. Movies and TV shows that can be summed up in a single line that makes the listener or reader SEE that movie/show (and like it) are more likely to get eyeballs in front of it. (just as you felt when you had your idea).

And the rest is marketing. Stars are marketing. Big posters are marketing. Don’t worry about that now.

So suddenly your best chance of success is to be both amazingly ORIGINAL and DEEPLY PREDICTABLE. Or, if you prefer, RELIABLE…

How?

It starts with the idea. The idea needs to tick a few boxes to even get of the starting block. Here is what it needs to do:

  • Post itself in a GENRE
  • Have a great TITLE
  • Give a sense of CONFLICT
  • Have a sense of IRONY
  • Hint at the AUDIENCE

In one line.

How?

For this one, I’m going to turn to the experts…. You can read about it here.

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