Can I just admit how much I hate writing log lines? Query letter? No problem. Synopsis? Piece of cake. But log lines? Ugh. They're my bete noire - even with a solid storyline, I have trouble writing them.
Why? Some of it is undoubtedly just me being pissy: all that marketing-yourself stuff makes me grumpy. And some of it is my dislike of appropriating tips and tricks from the screenwriting/film genre (from which log lines came), especially those that don't transfer well to written literature. Am I alone in thinking that boiling down your magnum opus to a hook like "It's Titanic meets Harry Potter!" not only denigrates your own work, making it seem derivative, but also smacks of the absurd? The combinations so often sound silly, and you're basically calling to mind other people's artworks in lieu of describing your own.
Ah, but I'm tangenting, trying to dodge truthfully answering the why-do-I-suck-at-writing-log-lines question. Aside from it just being plain old hard to capture the essence of a work in one sentence, I don't like that log lines can break your heart. Really, they can.
Imagine, if you will, finally completing your first novel. You know, the one that you picked up and put down for over ten years, working on it in dribs and drabs as life's vicissitudes allowed. The one you poured a lot of heart and fear and hope into. The one that somehow proved you could actually do it, you could actually accomplish writing a book. You glow for a while, riding high on I-finally-did-it endorphins, before putting on your marketing hat and getting down to the business of submitting. All goes well until you try to draft a log line and discover you can't. And the reason you can't is because the story refuses to be boiled down. And the reason it refuses to be boiled down is because there are problems. Lots and lots of problems. Big problems. So big as to make you realize that you've written something not only unsalable, but also not very good.
Sigh.
Why? Some of it is undoubtedly just me being pissy: all that marketing-yourself stuff makes me grumpy. And some of it is my dislike of appropriating tips and tricks from the screenwriting/film genre (from which log lines came), especially those that don't transfer well to written literature. Am I alone in thinking that boiling down your magnum opus to a hook like "It's Titanic meets Harry Potter!" not only denigrates your own work, making it seem derivative, but also smacks of the absurd? The combinations so often sound silly, and you're basically calling to mind other people's artworks in lieu of describing your own.
Ah, but I'm tangenting, trying to dodge truthfully answering the why-do-I-suck-at-writing-log-lines question. Aside from it just being plain old hard to capture the essence of a work in one sentence, I don't like that log lines can break your heart. Really, they can.
Imagine, if you will, finally completing your first novel. You know, the one that you picked up and put down for over ten years, working on it in dribs and drabs as life's vicissitudes allowed. The one you poured a lot of heart and fear and hope into. The one that somehow proved you could actually do it, you could actually accomplish writing a book. You glow for a while, riding high on I-finally-did-it endorphins, before putting on your marketing hat and getting down to the business of submitting. All goes well until you try to draft a log line and discover you can't. And the reason you can't is because the story refuses to be boiled down. And the reason it refuses to be boiled down is because there are problems. Lots and lots of problems. Big problems. So big as to make you realize that you've written something not only unsalable, but also not very good.
Sigh.
2 comments:
do you have to write your own? you could have your collaborator or another reader write them. perhaps?
Nice dispatch and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you as your information.
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