A perfectionist Youtube star’s page views plummet when she falls for a hang loose gamer geek. Their PDA insecurities and her scheming manager threaten to ctrl+alt+delete their dreams to go public with their “In a relationship” status.

The logline is very hard for me to understand. It could be that you’re using too many slang terms and IT industry insider phrasing.

The MC is the Youtube star, and the inciting incident is her falling in love. What is a “…hang loose gamer geek…”? Why is this a problem? What is at stake? What is PDA insecurities? What does “…ctrl+alt+delete their dreams to go public …” mean? What is her goal? If she and the gammer are in love she got the guy, what’s then the ensuing problem?

Yup got it.

I asked my partner what PDA is and she knew, guess I’m out of touch with the lingo, yo…

I understand that you were trying to demonstrate character via the wording, but loglines are not the place for that. You could do so in the script, or perhaps even in the synopsis.

I’ve been asked to write a couple of one-pagers for a producer who works in a very large studio, as a precursor for writing a script for one of their next productions. I will be using ‘lingo’ and phrasing that embody the feel and subject matter in the one-pagers, but not in the loglines that go with them.

Perhaps use ‘laid-back’ and ‘derail’ instead. However, I’m still not sure what the problem is for them to be together. If their love means so little to them that they are willing to forsake or consider forsaking it, for their online image, why would the audience care enough to watch their story?

I see two problems with this concept, the first is in the approach the second in the stakes/actions.

The first:
In order to develop a concept of any kind, you need to understand the conventions of said medium. In in this instance, it appears that you’re trying to develop a concept for a film. If this is the case, it wold be in your interest to comply with what the industry needs in order for it to get produced. Your definition of loglines, formulaic and none formulaic, is flawed. The reason being that either a logline is a logline or it is something else, formulaic or not – the lines you wrote in your last post were not loglines.

Loglines are tools invented by the film industry ~100 years ago. They are intended to fulfil very specific functions in the production process. The first is to pitch the concept via plot, the second is to help writers/producers structure the plot. As implied in its function, a logline needs to describe the plot. Without an inciting incident, a main character, motivation and goal there is no plot. Therefore, the only “type” of logline that exists is one that describes a plot, anything else could be a tagline, short description or any other definition you choose. There are slight differences in using loglines to pitch a TV pilot, but that’s a different medium altogether.

Not meaning to sound facetious, but I strongly suggest you learn logline conventions, a good place to start is with the Training tab on the top bar of this website. Another good thing to do is read through the many good and bad loglines posted on this site already.

The second:
The stakes aren’t clear/high enough. Even if there is a big deal coming through that is put at risk, she comes across as callous if she’s willing to lose her true love for it – a possible character flaw. However, all she has to do is decide between being with the man she loves or retaining her views. This couldn’t possibly take up an entire second act worth of action, it’s a decision and no more, and plots are made up of action in the pursuit of goals. These actions are not the act of deciding in its own right but are taken as a result of a decision, so my question is; providing the above is correct, what does she actually do during the film and what does she stand to lose if she does and what does she stand to lose if she doesn’t?