Logline Template

A logline is one sentence that captures the entire story. It is the hardest sentence you will write for your book, and it is the one you will use the most. Agents ask for it. Editors ask for it. Booksellers, journalists, podcasters, your aunt at Christmas -- they all ask for it. And in the small private theatre of your own writing process, the logline is the answer to the question "what is this story really about?" If you cannot write a clean logline, the story underneath it may not yet know what it is.

This template gives you a framework for writing one, tested against the most common loglines in published fiction and Hollywood film. The point is not to formulate a perfect sentence on the first try. The point is to use the formula as a forcing function -- it will surface the assumptions in your story that you had not articulated yet.

A working logline does four things at once: it identifies the protagonist, the inciting incident, the goal, and the stakes. That is a lot to fit in one sentence. The template walks you through each piece separately, then helps you assemble them.

The Core Formula

The most reliable logline formula in working use is:

When [inciting incident], a [protagonist with a defining attribute] must [pursue a specific goal] before [stakes / antagonistic force].

This is not the only formula, and it is not a law. But it is the one most working loglines reduce to once you strip the rhetorical flourish away. Master this version first; once you can produce a working logline reliably, you can experiment with variations.

Element 1: The Protagonist

The protagonist appears in the logline as a noun phrase, usually with one or two adjectives that define the character's role in this story. The name almost never matters at the logline stage. What matters is the structural identity.

• "An orphan wizard" tells you more than "Harry."
• "A widowed marine biologist" tells you more than "Anna."
• "A disgraced surgeon" tells you more than "Tom."

The defining attribute should suggest the protagonist's emotional starting position or social role. It signals the kind of character arc the reader can expect.

What to write here: Your protagonist as a noun phrase. Two attributes maximum. The attributes should hint at what the story will challenge or transform.

Element 2: The Inciting Incident

The inciting incident is the event that disrupts the protagonist's normal life and starts the story moving. It should be specific, external, and unmistakable.

Compare these:

• Vague: "When her life is turned upside down..."
• Specific: "When her husband disappears on the morning of their tenth anniversary..."

The specific version tells you exactly when the story starts and what it is about. The vague version could be any story.

What to write here: The inciting incident in one specific clause. If you cannot point to a concrete event in the story, your inciting incident is not yet sharp enough.

Element 3: The Goal

The goal is what the protagonist actively pursues in the story. It should be concrete enough to succeed or fail. "Find herself" is too abstract. "Find her sister" is concrete.

The goal should also be visible to the reader. If your protagonist's goal is "process her grief," you have an internal arc but not a story-level goal. Pair the internal want with an external action that dramatizes it. "Find her sister" might be the surface goal; "process her grief" is what the search achieves. Loglines belong on the surface goal.

What to write here: The external goal as a verb phrase. "Win the case." "Rescue the prisoner." "Expose the conspiracy." "Win her trust." Active. Specific. Visible.

Element 4: The Stakes

Stakes answer the reader's implicit question: "What happens if the protagonist fails?" Without stakes, the goal carries no urgency. The reader has no reason to keep turning pages, because the cost of failure is undefined.

Stakes can be:

• Personal: A relationship, a self-image, a way of life.
• Physical: Injury, death, loss of freedom.
• Social: Reputation, community standing, a family bond.
• Existential: A belief, a faith, a sense of meaning.

The best loglines often combine stakes -- "before she loses both the case and her last connection to her brother" carries personal and professional weight together.

What to write here: The cost of failure, in concrete terms. Avoid "everything is at stake" -- that sentence is logline death.

Element 5: The Antagonistic Force

In many loglines, the stakes and the antagonistic force collapse into a single clause. "Before her father wakes from the coma and discovers the missing money" gives you both the stakes (discovery) and the antagonistic force (her father, indirectly; the clock, directly).

The antagonistic force is whatever opposes the goal. It does not have to be a villain. It can be a system, a deadline, a place, a force of nature, the protagonist's own flaw, or another person whose goal conflicts with theirs.

What to write here: The antagonistic force in the clause, even if implicit. A logline without an opposing force feels static.

Assembling the Logline

Put the pieces together. Start with the formula, then loosen the syntax until it reads naturally.

Example (from formula):

When her husband disappears on their anniversary, a widowed marine biologist must find him before his disappearance is officially ruled suicide.

Example (loosened, more natural):

A marine biologist whose husband vanishes on the morning of their tenth anniversary has forty-eight hours to find him before the police close the case.

Both versions convey the same information. The second reads more like a marketing line. The first is a better diagnostic tool. Use whichever serves you.

Stress-Testing the Logline

Once you have a draft, ask:

• Is the protagonist active? Loglines built on passive protagonists ("when her life is changed by...") signal stories where things happen to characters rather than because of them. Rewrite to put the protagonist in the driver's seat.
• Is the goal visible? Could the reader picture the protagonist pursuing it? If the goal is internal, you have not yet found the externalization that will make the story dramatic.
• Are the stakes specific? "She might lose everything" is not stakes. "She might lose custody of her daughter" is.
• Could this logline only describe your story? If you can swap your protagonist out for a different character and the logline still works, you have not yet identified what is distinctive about your story.
• Does the logline make the reader want to know what happens? The honest test. Read it aloud to someone unfamiliar with the project. Do their eyebrows go up? If not, keep cutting.

Common Logline Variations

Once the core formula is solid, you can experiment with shape.

• Setup + question: "A retired hitman is hired for one final job. What he does not know is that the target is his estranged daughter." Two-sentence structure that works well for thrillers and noir.
• Irony emphasis: Lead with the contradiction at the heart of the story. "The greatest detective in Paris is a pickpocket who cannot remember her own name."
• Mirror reveal: Two parallel halves that snap together. "Two brothers, one death, one cover-up, one summer."
• High-concept short form: When the premise itself sells the story. "Jurassic Park, but with dragons." Use sparingly -- it works only when the elevator pitch genuinely is the hook.

How to Customize This Template

• For novels: Use the logline as the first sentence of your query letter and the spine of your synopsis. Every draft of your novel should be tested against the logline: if a major plot decision contradicts the logline, decide which one needs to change.
• For screenplays: Loglines are non-negotiable here. Spend more time on the logline than on any other planning document. A weak logline will sink an otherwise strong script in the query stage.
• For short stories: The logline becomes the elevator pitch. Compress further -- aim for 15-20 words. Short fiction loglines lean heavily on irony and concept.
• For series: Write a series-level logline and a book-level logline. The series logline describes the macro journey; the book logline describes the current installment. Both should pass the same stress tests.
• For nonfiction: The formula bends but holds. Replace "protagonist" with "argument" and "goal" with "intervention." A nonfiction logline tells the reader what question the book answers and what changes if they read it.

Build your logline in Plotiar. Keep your working logline at the top of your project notes, revise it as the story evolves, and use it as the test every plot decision has to pass. Try it free.