I recently hosted an online pilot writing challenge called, “From Idea to Rough Draft.”
It was for writers interested in creating a television pilot from whole cloth. The first step in the challenge was to come up with an idea for a show and write a logline.
The logline describes the show in one or two concise sentences. It tells you what the main conflict of the series is going to be, week after week. Loglines aren’t just selling tools. They also serve as a map for you, the writer. That way you’re not just writing any old shit. You’re telling a complete story.
I gave plenty of real world examples of effective loglines and also gave notes on dozens of loglines submitted by students.
One of the exercises I had them do was a little less conventional. Instead of writing a logline and going forward towards the story, I had them do the reverse. I asked them to read the story “The House on Witherspoon Street” from my book, A Paper Orchestra, and figure out what the logline would be if I adapted it into a TV show.
This exercise would be particularly helpful for writers adapting a show from source material.
I really thought this wouldn’t be that difficult, yet of the dozens and dozens of submissions I received, absolutely no one got it right!
Here are a handful of submissions, along with why they don’t work as loglines.
A failed creative writing student desperate to be seen finds a glimmer of hope in a local radio station copywriting job only to be pushed further into obscurity when his brief moment on air leaves him feeling more invisible than ever.
This describes the story if it were the pilot episode, but it doesn’t describe the tension of the show, week in and week out. What’s the series about on a bigger scale?
A struggling creative writing student is briefly seen as the writer he wants to be by a wealthy radio host, and learns that being believed in can cost more than rejection.
Again, this describes an episode, but not the show. Also, the idea that “being believed in can cost more than rejection is a real downer.” I don’t think I’d want to watch that show.
An insecure college student is so determined to be recognized for his writing that he eagerly accepts an unpaid copywriting job at an uninspiring radio station and then fails to see the real opportunity presented to him: kindness of a stranger.
Same note as above. Every week, the hero is not going to fail to see the kindness of a stranger. That would get old fast. Also, what are the stakes? Why should an audience care if an insecure college student fails to be recognized for his writing. Lot’s of people don’t get recognized for their writing. Big deal.
An aspiring young writer must help an aging socialite with her low rated radio show in order to advance his writing career.
Someone else thought the stakes were advancing his writing career. Again, that’s low stakes. Lots of people don’t succeed as writers. No one cares if the hero of the story joins their ranks.
When a Princeton College writing student chooses to intern at a dilapidated radio station his naive hubris allows him to be caught in an aging socialite’s web of delusion.
Tonally, this logline was way off. It sounded sinister. Like the show would be a thriller.
A failing student writer works as a weekly story hour host at an antiquated radio station funded widow with a loose grip on reality, where he must appease her by sculpting stories from her fantasy life and memories, that play out in her mind and on our screen, in order to keep her bank rolling the station in the old house on Witherspoon Street.
I give this logline points for being a full swing, but they took too much creative license. In other words, the pitch isn’t supported by the text. Also, the stakes are the fate of the radio station. That’s low stakes. Lots of radio stations go bankrupt and no one cares.
So what’s the answer? Here’s the logline that I would use if I were adapting The House on Witherspoon Street into a TV show.
