Good logline?

Check out the formula tab to help with formatting. A logline should be one sentence starting with the inciting incident, introducing the character and telling us her goal, the antagonistic forces working against her, the stakes, and possibly a ticking clock.

What is the scene that shows us, the audience, that she is unable to afford living in the city? Is she kicked out of her apartment? Does she lose her job? Does she simply turn up one day and realise that she can’t afford it? Whatever this scene is IS the inciting incident and the logline needs to start with that level of specificity.

We don’t need to know her name but we do need to know something about her. Other than being poor is she resourceful, shy, immature, naive? She needs a characteristic for us to understand how she’s going to shape her story.

How are the bonds of friendship tested? Think visually. What actually happens?

What’s her goal? Usually, the inciting incident upsets the balance in the protagonist’s life and their goal becomes to correct that imbalance. If the inciting incident was “she is kicked out of her apartment because she can’t pay the rent” then her goal should be to get to find a job so she can. Without a goal we, the reader, can’t see where the story is going to go so why should we read your script.

She’s unable to afford living alone… doesn’t mean she can’t afford to rent a room right? Why does she have to move in with her best friend? If you’re going to make a character do something, make sure the audience don’t sit there thinking there’s a better way. If she’s hit rock bottom – zero cash, zero job – then it’d be understandable why the friend would take her into their tiny one bedroom apartment. With the logline as it stands, I just see her crashing there for a few nights while she finds a place because you haven’t made her situation seem that dire (yet).

This isn’t an unfamiliar premise for a film… how are you going to set this apart? What’s your hook?

Hope this helps.