While 25 words is ideal for a ‘hooky’ logline, our research found that the most effective ‘story’ loglines range in word count from 25 to … 55. On this site we honour both types of loglines, but we focus primarily on the longer versions as they work harder as a test of your story. Below are the top reviewers’ most frequent notes, and what industry pros focus on. Check the examples and fix your logline before you post.
8 Action, not decision
Actions can be sustained — and seen. Decisions, not so much.
A story is not about a character deciding whether to act. Commitment, not deliberation: say what the character does — pursues, sabotages, flees — not that they must choose.
Test: Replace "must decide/choose" with a verb.
What the Medic checks, in order of importance:
- The second-act action is something that can be sustained, not a decision made in a moment.
- The action itself is visible on screen, not an internal process of working out what to do.
- Only where the protagonist hesitates instead of acting on the major event: the logline replaces a bare "must decide whether X or Y" with a goal they actively pursue while working the decision out.
Seen in 75 real reviews
One real review where a top reviewer raised this exact note:
1 Well-defined POV
Follow one protagonist, and give them one detail that matters.
One sentence holds one story, told from one point of view. Competing threads confuse readers about what the story actually is — and a generic label ("a woman", "a cop") wastes the one chance you have to make the lead particular, so the detail you choose should say something about the story that follows, not just about the character.
Test: Choose the primary throughline, give its protagonist one telling detail, and check that detail earns its place in the story, not just on the page.
What the Medic checks, in order of importance:
- The logline follows a single protagonist's perspective, even if the underlying story has two.
- That protagonist is described with a specific, character-defining detail, not a generic label.
- The detail given is relevant to the story that follows, not specificity for its own sake.
Seen in 324 real reviews
2 Clear, difficult goal
The ending is picturable — and worth a whole film.
Without a clear goal there is no story engine. Readers need to picture the ending the protagonist is driving towards, and that ending has to be big enough to justify two hours.
Test: State what the protagonist wants, and ask whether you can picture them getting it.
What the Medic checks, in order of importance:
- The ending is anticipated and picturable, not left open.
- The goal is substantial enough to be worth pursuing, and big enough to justify a film.
- Only where the logline uses a midpoint-reversal structure: it is the final goal, not just the first-half goal, that is anticipated.