A grieving student staying alone on a university campus over the Christmas holidays becomes involved in a brutal fight for his life, after accidentally tuning into a nearby heist using a handheld police scanner.

A logline is supposed to tell us what is going to happen in the story. It is not a tagline, designed to encourage people to see the film, it’s supposed to give readers a comprehensive understanding of what the plot is – inciting incident, protagonist, goal, stakes.

As Richiev has pointed out, there is a big gap in your logline. The reader needs to understand what happens that leads to him getting directly involved because that’s actually the inciting incident. Hearing it over the scanner doesn’t mean anything until he does something that means he is now caught up in it.

The protagonist has accidentally tuned in using a police scanner…. so surely the police are aware of this too? Why are the criminals broadcasting their heist… especially over a frequency that is used by police scanners? Doesn’t make any sense to me. There is simply no reason why this student should have to get involved. Loads of people listen to police scanners too. The thing that connects all these dots is the one thing missing – as Richiev has said.

If a reader doesn’t get everything they need from a logline, they will never get to the synopsis.

Why is the fact that he’s grieving relevant? Or the fact that he’s staying alone? Or the fact that it’s Christmas? Or the fact that he’s a student? ?All of the components should have some relevance to the story you’re trying to tell. That’s not to say that they don’t – however I’m simply not getting enough information from this logline to understand what that is currently.

My advice is read the “Our formula” page and understand more about the purpose of a logline then give this another go. Regardless of whether this is a good logline though I think there are story issues that might need addressing first – however I’m only basing that on the information provided in this logline.

Hope this helps.