How do you know you have an idea for a movie? You may think movie ideas are obvious: They're not. There are numerous elements that make up a movie; Character, world, tone, dialogue, plot, cinematography, editing, and so on. So many writers invent a great character, or a fascinating world, and they say, "Wha-la! It's a movie!"
But the more they try to explain the movie, the more rambling and unfocused it sounds, because a movie idea has a specific calculus that they're ignoring.
What's the specific calculus of a genuine movie idea? It's the logline. If you can't write a logline, you don't have a movie idea, and if you try to write the movie anyway, you will inevitably meander or reboot your story with late additions of characters and goals, which will deflate the reader's expectations and turn the read into a skim, because now it's clear you think a movie idea is stuff happening plus length, so you're just writing to get over a hundred pages.
Put your time to better use. Make sure your ideas can be expressed in logline form. I'll give you my idiot-proof version of logline format:
When INCITING INCIDENT, a SPECIFIC PROTAGONIST must OBJECTIVE, or else STAKES.
That's it. Easy, right? And yet, gah, how some writers fight this, pointing to examples that don't follow the above format.
First of all, we all love the Coen Brothers (they are the bane of all beginning screenwriters). The Coen Brothers will make a great film that breaks rules. If you're reading this blog, you're most likely trying to break in to the business as a writer. Unless you're going to direct your own script, why are you trying to be the Coen Brothers? Name a screenwriter with a career that breaks the rules and isn't also the director?
If the rules make you feel like you're compromising your art, at least master the rules before you break them. Go look at Picasso's pre-cubist work. If Picasso can follow the rules, so can you.
But what about logline examples for successful commercial films that don't follow the format? Well, let's look at:
LIAR LIAR: A high profile attorney can't tell a lie for 24 hours.
We've all seen a version of this logline on the internet. It perfectly captures a humorous conflict. It feels like it should be a movie. But the above logline states no inciting incident, no objective, and no stakes.
Who cares, right? So long as it makes them want to read the script? Wrong. The logline isn't just for the reader. It's also for the writer.
You can easily imagine someone taking the idea of a lawyer forced to tell the truth for 24 hours and meandering or rebooting the story, especially without the guideposts of an objective with stakes for failure. I'm willing to bet that the actual writer of LIAR LIAR understood his objectives and stakes perfectly well, and could have written a more complete logline for the script as follows:
LIAR LIAR: After his neglected son's birthday wish comes true, a high-profile attorney must win the biggest case of his career while being unable to lie, or else lose the promotion he needs to pay for his divorce.
Now THAT is a logline that will keep you on track for writing the script. THAT is the logline that gives a savvy reader confidence. All too often, I'll read a logline where the protagonist faces a conflict with no clear course of action, and get worried that the writer doesn't know what her/his protagonist must do, which means a wishy-washy passive protagonist, which means no actor wants to play the role, which means skim, then pass.
Do yourself a favor and get your logline right, so that you KNOW you have an idea for a movie.
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