Been trying my hand at a logline for my book, Wonder Gone Missing. I’ve been using “Save the Cat! WRITES A NOVEL” as a guide. I have to say, if you have a long twisty plot in your own book, Save the Cat! can really save your keester.
I’ve been working with their recommendations this afternoon. It’s too much to explain ALL of them and probably a copyright issue as well, but the author recommends starting your logline with: “On the verge of …” So that’s what I did. Then I tried to fit it in a tweet.
Well, guess what? #MissionAccomplished.
Except: I can’t fit in #logline, which seems sorta essential for someone to see it some day. Like it in a pitmad competition or something along those lines.
Oh, well. I’ll keep working it. I must say I find my book a little on the ugly side when it’s down to one sentence, but here it is:
LOGLINE:
UPDATE: I can fit this all into one tweet:
On the verge of losing her sanity after her brother’s suicide, a grieving sister becomes entangled in a cult; when she discovers her brother had a child before his death, she must reexamine her family’s own cult history to escape with his daughter and her life. #logline
UPDATE 2.2: I found some that started with “when.” Was fun to play around. Better? Worse?
When a grieving sister takes a job at the New Mexico Library of Wonder, little does she know she’s about to entangle herself in a cult. When she discovers her brother had a child in the cult, she must reexamine her family’s past to escape with his daughter and her life. #pitmad
Are you working on a logline? What did you find helpful?
L.L. Wohlwend 
Sometimes I think loglines and blurbs are harder to write than the actual book itself. I didn’t use Save the Cat for my own loglines, but my writing group is reading it together and it does have a lot of useful writing advice.
Yes! I was surprised how useful the book was. Loglines are writing beasts!