If you happen to work in the movie or publishing industry, read these entries. Theme is the most challenging of the Six Core Competencies, and this exercise obviously hit home. These story ideas immediately resonated as something worth pursing, and as a reader, worth waiting for.Īs born from a song lyric, these story ideas have two of the four elemental core competencies already in place. By definition, your story becomes a vehicle for it from square one, rather than an empty vessel in search of meaning.īut here was the pleasant surprise and the revelation: there was no lack of conceptual and dramatic appeal in these entries, either. Which is why it can be valuable to begin the story development process with theme.
Each one had theme bubbling up from the words like steam from a volcanic hemorrhage. None – and I mean none – of the entries offered here suffered from that problem. Anyone hearing that pitch would have to make the leap without much inspiration for the log-line itself. (This is from the recent film, Moon, which was totally awesome and worth renting on DVD.)Īll concept, no theme. Like this: A replacement worker arrives on the moon for his three-year hitch at a mining operation and discovers the gig, and his own life, isn’t remotely what it seems. The author may know it’s there, but the pitch seems exclusively plot-focused.
Sometimes you’ll hear a pitch or log-line that seems void of theme. Everyone who responded offered up a compelling log-line, and the take-away was, for me (and I hope for you), very powerful.Īnd… feel free to add more lyrics and log-lines going forward. The response was amazing, both in quantity and quality.
#LOGLINE CONTEST HOW TO#
Last week I wrote a piece about how to find inspiration for our storytelling themes in song lyrics that haunt and amaze us. Even when propelled into our minds on the back of a melody. More people on the planet remember Imagine by John Lennon than generations of readers of “Moby Dick” combined. For songwriters, they get three minutes to come up with an iconic line or two that makes them and their music immortal. The highest goal of storytelling is to write something that changes lives.įor us this takes 400 pages and a whole lot of talent and luck.
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