Writers: Loglines (Part 2)
Or, putting my money where my mouth is
Loglines tap the very essence of your story and tug at the three crucial facets that form the core — need, conflict and stakes.
Yet every tale is unique and, as such, might often lean on one of these above the others or perhaps two of the three. Nor are these the only foundations of a great story; character, atmosphere or location might feature and substitute for a primary element.
The logline process
Ironically, your logline could be hiding in plain sight, if you know ‘when’ to look. If you have crafted your project in the layered steps I encourage you to follow, there will be a moment when your outline is complete enough that you are itching to turn it into narrative. Don’t scratch.
Writing your tale should be unfettered from anything that might drag on your imagination — for instance, lingering uncertainties of plot or character, anything that needs the rational part of your brain. If you know — If you’re sure about — what you need to say, you are free to unleash your ‘voice’ without restraint.
Just as crafting your story is a process of asking ‘what if?’ and ‘why?’ and then choosing the answers to those questions that render an outline from which to release your most creative narrative, the same applies to your logline.
It is infinitely easier to priorize (not ‘prioritize’) and stratify your options for a logline without the bulky padding of narrative.
Two distinct steps
First, decide on and list the needs, conflicts and stakes at the core of your tale. Spend as much time as you need weighing their import and relevance in context. Which ‘need’ refers to which ‘conflict’ and what are the ‘stakes?’
When you’ve winnowed the chaff from the central kernels of your story — the easiest part of the process — you can move on to the second, more demanding step, which is to ponder how to blend theme, emotional arc and character traits to build drama and tension in your logline.
Crafting the ‘Raptured’ Logline
The development of this story is recounted in my ‘Notebook to Narrative’ sequence, so I will only summarize it here.
Elijah Storm, Pastor of the Church of the Last Judgement and second-rate televangelist, is my protagonist. It is Elijah’s dearest wish to be God’s ‘tool’ on earth, but he believes his worthiness hinges on his becoming as successful as his rival, Joshua Cardinal of the Divine Message. Cardinal ministers to a global audience of millions for ninety minutes every Sunday from exotic locations, his message translated into dozens of languages. Elijah’s weekly half-hour sermons are broadcast on a public access channel serving the American mid-west.
All this changes when an angel named Keddah wakes Elijah in a dingy motel room and offers him the role of ‘Herald of the Rapture.’ Elijah agrees without thinking it through and the very next day is launched on a journey that makes him a global brand in six weeks. Elijah believes he is becoming worthy of his most cherished goal when, in fact, the opposite is true.
Keddah is not an angel but a Nephilim, the first of God’s seven prototypes for humankind — his six siblings guard the Portal to Perdition, the gateway to hell hidden in a cliff face on a Greek island. It is Keddah’s intent to build an army of demon-possessed humans and use them to breach the portal.
By releasing hell’s denizens onto the earthly plane, Keddah hopes to force God’s hand and invoke the Rapture as a spiritual cleansing of humanity, much like Noah’s flood.
Told by Keddah that a high-rise crane will collapse, Elijah runs up and down the street warning people. Police are summoned, but as they arrest him to the cheers of pedestrians, the crane falls. The following Sunday, the small television station from which he broadcasts is standing room only and when he asks if anyone in the audience is worthy of rapture, several step forward. Without warning, two of these volunteers in turn begin to glow, then disappear within pillars of bright white light.
Elijah sells out Madison Square Gardens, where more people glow and vanish. An international tour follows, along with the sudden appearance of an unknown but virulent virus in pockets around the globe. Despite his newfound celebrity, people scoff at his plea that prayer will do what modern medicine cannot — all but a badly afflicted community in Tennessee.
When their prayers succeed in routing the plague, earth’s citizens beg him to lead them in prayer and, just like that, all traces of the sickness vanish. As he returns to his penthouse hotel suite feeling more worthy than at any other time in his life, a strange woman in his room warns him that Keddah is not an angel and that he kidnapped her son.
Elijah follows her to a cargo ship docked in the harbour and they board. As they search for the baby, Elijah discovers that all of those he witnessed get raptured are now caged in the holds and possessed by demons. Then the ship moves, trapping him and the woman — who turns out to be Keddah’s wife — as stowaways.
Elijah realizes just how utterly he failed God and gives up. As the ship sails across the Mediterranean, Keddah’s wife, Ruth, revives his spirit by relating how she overheard Keddah explain his plan to Cardinal, also on board. But they can do nothing until Elijah learns the ship must pass the Portal to reach a suitable harbour.
Elijah grabs his chance and jumps from the stern. He nearly drowns and when he drags himself from the surf, no one believes he is who he claims to be — no one even understands him until a monk is summoned from a monastery above the cliff. The monk’s brethren believe Elijah can only be telling the truth, but their plans for defence are interrupted by a horde of possessed.
Soon Keddah holds a knife to his son’s throat — the portal will only open with a sample of divine blood, God’s blood, which flows in his son’s veins. Elijah escapes his bonds and tries to snatch the child. He fails and is hurled against the limestone cliff, lifeless.
Yet, as the child’s blood drips into a channel that runs into the cliff face and a rumble grows, Elijah rises, taller and no longer stoop-shouldered. His eyes are pure white and his voice clear as he speaks in a tongue only Keddah, his Nephilim siblings and the demons understand. His words smite the demons like a weapon, and the Nephilim drop to their knees. Still, Keddah saws furiously at the infant’s neck, but the blood has stopped, and Keddah dies from Elijah’s touch.
So …
Elijah’s goal is to be as successful as his rival, Joshua Cardinal, so he might better serve God. His need is to learn that in no way does wealth and celebrity raise his status in God’s eyes.
The theme of the story explores whether two versions of success are of equal value. In order to complete his emotional journey, Elijah first had to succeed the wrong way, lose everything and begin again.
The conflict is trickier. He must defeat Keddah’s plan to force the Rapture, but for the greater part of the story, he isn’t even aware of it and, in fact, is an accessory to it. Unless the main conflict is with himself, but that won’t stand alone, either.
But there is an underlying (forgive me) duality repeating itself here. Bear with me, please — you already have permission to laugh at me, just be patient a moment longer.
His goal and need are identical yet opposite, like two arms. The theme compares these two paths toward becoming ‘worthy,’ and the conflict consists of two lengths of a limb connected by a joint — each needs the other to work.
Even the stakes are twinned. Had Elijah failed to see his celebrity as a betrayal of his faith, he would not have equated being God’s tool with self-sacrifice.
Meh. This is not a literary milestone — this is a kinda funny, kinda scary, irreverent take on a religious myth. So where does that leave me?
An unknown televangelist views his sudden celebrity as an endorsement of his faith
A celestial being … a demigod …
A rural televangelist is offered a lead role in the Rapture along with success both sudden and momentary
A rural televangelist grabs an angel’s offer of a leading role in the Rapture
An unknown televangelist jumps at the role of Herald of the Rapture and then learns it’s not God’s plan to destroy humanity.
A rural televangelist jumps at the chance to be Herald of the Rapture until he learns God has nothing to do with it
A rural televangelist jumps at the chance to be Herald of the Rapture then learns God has no idea the world is about to end
A rural televangelist jumps at the chance to be Herald of the Rapture then learns God has no idea the world is about to end, so it’s up to him to save it.
Actually, I think this last one is pretty good as a logline, because it implies there are two parts to the story. The first part, where Elijah grabs his new role — he jumps at the chance — suggests he is desperate and that he didn’t even think before accepting.
Which leads to the second bit, where Elijah learns this Rapture is not what he thought it was and God is unaware of what’s about to happen. But the final phrase that it’s up to him to save the world might not sound as encouraging as it does had Elijah not been seen as a suitable Herald in the first place.
Ok. Now you can laugh.
