Loglines to the Rescue – Writing Aid
Elevator pitches are for more than just trying to sell a completed work. They’re also handier than a pocket on a shirt for boiling down the essence of your story, pointing you toward the heart of your tale.
Crafting the perfect elevator pitch isn’t easy. I mean, how can you boil a 100,000 word book into a single sentence (or at most, two sentences)? Better yet, you’re standing at the foot of your next big project with all these loose threads bandying about your brain. What magic incantation do you devise to make sense of it all?
I have to give huge props to one of my editors who pointed me to an article by professional screenwriter Noam Kroll. He gives a step by step process for writing what is called a logline for your story. Now for him, he was talking about screenplays, but you can use it for anything. It’s given me laser focus for several projects I’ve been working on, and has also dramatically improved my ability to convey new ideas to my editors. Loglines eliminate all of the hemming and hawing and cut to the heart of your story.
They’re not simple to write, but with practice, you’ll soon be a master. And you’ll wonder how you wrote without them.
To read Noam’s article, click here.
Now nail that logline down and get to writing!
Hunter Shea 
Iam sorry the fb message i sent i wasent asking for ur new books free u been to kind to my crazy self nough.and i ty from bottom of my heart.i glad theres still good folks left in this world mr hunter
No worries. I hope all is well! 🙂
Hey, brother. Great advice there. As you say, an elevator pitch narrows your focus to laser beam accuracy. It also shows–both you and whoever you’re pitching it to–that you know exactly what your story’s final destination will be.
It was a life saver for me on some projects I was working on.
As oddly simple as the advice seems, I think it may have just helped me pull my head out of my ass on a story. Too busy trying to think about where it starts to think about where it’s going, which seems obvious now and makes me feel kind of silly, heh. Novice mistakes, I guess.
We all make those mistakes. Right now, Stephen King is wondering where the hell his new story is supposed to go.
Thank you for this! Not only did I learn some new writerly lingo (logline), but was able to write one up for “Dark Hollow Road” in a matter of minutes based on the advise given!
It’s like magic, I tell ya. 🙂