A petty thief, an illegitimate son and a father; the trio are sitting at the same restaurant unknowingly, only to discover later that their paths will meet when the biggest heist will make them come together at some point only to reveal the deeper connection and there is more to lose than the money.

First: thank you for keeping it to one sentence, albeit a long one. 🙂 But that is the first thing I always look for: length – because the logline will serve as your pitch … if it takes you any longer than 10 seconds to say it without losing the listener, then you’ve hit it! But let’s talk about content. Ultimately the core of your story is what? A TWIST! So let’s pull something together without being so obvious.

Who: you’ve introduced the characters, but there needs to be a greater gap between the illegitimate son and father – that screams of foreshadowing. The petty thief – sure, you can run with that, but again it may be a bit obvious. And try to use characters that we haven’t seen as protagonists: i.e., a hardworking construction worker, an honest attorney, or a by-the-book cop (ok, I may have offended some people). But you get the gist.

What: the biggest heist – good. But what is this biggest heist? This isn’t the “twist”, so it’ll be ok to reveal here … and remember to make it unique. A jewel or art heist is played out. Bank robbery – zzzzzzzz. Make sure it’s consistent with the theme, i.e., comedy – kidnapping Shamu from Sea World, thriller – gov’t secret, but nothing that’s a conspiracy theory …

Where: place – whether proper noun or not … give us a setting.

When: past, present, future … or during a specific time like “The Great Depression” … give us a sense. OR if the “when” is not necessary to the story, then replace with a deadline – this is the ticking time bomb!

Why: this is where you hint at the twist without teeing it up for us.

Bang this out again and see how it shapes. Then let me know because I’d like to read what you come up with … and then we can work on it again. Loglines are never perfect the first, second, or twentieth time. Revision, revision, revision until it’s as tight as you can get it.