MPR

  • WHAT
    • The Mid Point Reversal is a term for the moment that inspires new life into your story around the halfway point. In many successful films – and TV shows – you’ll find a reversal of fortune for the Main Character, and a resulting reversal of action by the Main Character. Sometimes it feels like there is a new major event, and a resulting change of goals, or a new action by the character. E.g. in Jaws, the sheriff almost loses his son to the shark (Event), and then decides to go out into the ocean to kill the shark (Action).
  • HOW
    • Adding the Mid Point Reversal is going to increase the word count, but in our view this only makes your logline richer and more interesting – provided it is truly a dramatic turn… The challenge is to incorporate this additional information while keeping the sentence easily readable.
    • The easiest way to express the complexity and added depth of an MPR in the logline, is to treat it as if you have a second Event and a new Goal/Action.
  • EVENT
    • Because this often all happens just when things seem to be going well for the Main Character, we introduce the reversals using the phrase “but when…”
    • To make the logline work, we write the MPR Event in the exact same way as you would for the 1st event, as a full sentence. “His own son is nearly taken by the shark.” And you can already see how we will introduce the new approach, or revised Action / Goal.
  • ACTION
    • If the Action / Goal is still the same in the second half of the story, you can skip the MPR, and just untick the option in the Logline Generator. Otherwise, just write this new goal in the same way you did for the first goal: “to + verb.” E.g.: “to go out into the ocean to hunt and kill the monster.”
    • For Jaws, the MPR-ready logline could be along the lines of: “When a tourist is killed by a great white, a small-town sheriff must convince the community to close the beach, but when his own son is nearly taken by the shark (Event), he must go out into the ocean to hunt and kill the monster (Action).”

DON’T FORGET

Whatever you write now doesn’t have to be perfect.
You can play around with it later, and edit the logline generator’s outcome.

These notes complement the Logline Generator, developed in partnership with Story Architect.
Our thanks also go to Peter Boot, who coded the very first Logline Generator.

When drafting your logline using the Logline Generator, click the relevant section for more info on each.