With the “Realize life is already good” emotional logline, the hero lives in a decent world but longs for something better. The key is that the hero already has what they want but they don’t realize it until the very end. This sudden realization that what they’ve been looking for has been with them all this time creates the powerful emotional experience of the story.
Although the hero already lives in a world they enjoy, there’s always one minor problem and that problem is what causes the hero to want something more. So the dilemma of the hero looks like this:
Stay in current life and be unhappy vs. Pursue an outside goal to fix the problem in their current life (and hope it makes them happier)
In “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy lives a pleasant life on a farm with her family, but the one problem is that her mean neighbor, Almira Gulch, wants to take Dorothy’s dog, Toto, away from her because Toto bit her. Because Dorothy wants to save Toto, her world can never be perfect.
Dorothy’s dilemma is that if she stays on the farm, she risks losing Toto, but if she runs away, she can possibly save Toto.
In “Big”, the hero, Josh, is a 13-year old kid who feels depressed after trying to impress a girl at a carnival, only to find out he’s too short to get on the ride with her. That’s when Josh makes a wish with an arcade machine to be big because he thinks being big will make his life better. It’s only later when he’s big does he realize how much he misses growing up as a kid.
Josh’s dilemma is that if nothing changes, he’ll still feel miserable being too small, but if he can become big, he has a chance to finally get the respect he wants.
In “Soul”, the hero, Joe, is a music teacher who’s obsessed with becoming a professional jazz musician. When he gets his chance to audition for a notable jazz band, he’s delighted to get accepted. Unfortunately, he dies immediately afterwards and spends the rest of the story trying to get back to Earth again and live so he can continue his dream of playing jazz professionally.
Joe’s dilemma is that if he stays in the afterlife, he’ll never get a chance to play professionally as a jazz musician, but if he can come back to life on Earth, he has a chance to play professionally as a jazz musician.
In the “Realize life is already good” emotional logline, the hero goes through the following steps:
- Lives a decent life but is dissatisfied because of a single flaw or problem.
- Wants to leave their decent life to fix the flaw or problem in their current life.
- Enters a new world that initially seems to solve their initial flaw or problem in their life.
- Starts to miss and see the appeal of their old world as they run into different problems in the new world.
- Realizes their old world may actually be better than their new world.
- Returns to their old world and learns to appreciate everything it offers.
With the “Realize life is already good” emotional logline, the hero constantly struggles to get to another world. In “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the hero, George Bailey, thinks the only way he can be happy is to leave his small town. So he’s constantly struggling to leave.
On the other hand, in “Big”, the hero, Josh, finds himself trapped in the adult world but longing to return back to his childhood. The biggest fear of the hero in the “Realize life is already good” emotional logline is either not being able to leave their current world (the small town in “It’s a Wonderful Life”) or not being able to return back to their original world (the world of being a child in “Big”).
When the hero feels they’re trapped forever in the wrong world, that’s their Rock Bottom moment when all appears lost.
In “It’s a Wonderful Life”, this occurs when George Bailey has lost all the money to keep his savings and loan going and he fears going to prison as a result. That’s when he studies his life insurance policy, decides he’s worth more dead than alive, and plans to commit suicide to leave his small town world forever.
In “Big”, Josh is given a chance to propose a new line of toys . Yet he doesn’t know how to create a proposal and longs for his carefree life as a child instead. At this point, he realizes he’s not ready to be big and doesn’t fit in the adult world.
In “The Wizard of Oz”, the Wicked Witch captures Dorothy and traps her in an hourglass where she has a limited amount of time before she’ll be killed. Dorothy’s chances of returning home now look impossible.
Just as life looks horrible for the hero, the hero’s mentor and allies arrive to rescue the hero. Now the hero is free to either leave their original world (the small town in “It’s a Wonderful Life”) or leave their new world (the adult world in “Big”).
This is the moment when the hero suddenly realizes that changing worlds isn’t the answer after all. Now the hero has a choice. Should they stay in their new world with all of its flaws? Or should they return back to their old world with all of its flaws, but with a new perspective on their old world?
In “It’s a Wonderful Life”, George Bailey wishes he was never born, so Clarence, his guardian angel grants him that wish. Now George gets to see how horrible life would have turned out for so many of his friends if he hadn’t been alive to influence their lives. This suddenly shock makes George realize that no matter how bad his old life may have been, not being born at all has created a nightmare world that’s much worse instead.
In “Big”, Josh leaves his toy presentation when he learns that the location of the arcade machine that made him big. He’s made his decision to leave the adult world and go back to being a child again. The suspense lies in whether he can find the arcade machine again.
In “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy tries to leave Oz with the Wizard in a hot air balloon, but when it takes off without her, Dorothy fears she’s trapped in Oz forever. That’s when the Glinda the good Witch tells her that she had the power to return home all along, but she had to find out for herself. Now Dorothy decides to leave Oz by tapping her heels together and repeating, “There’s no place like home.”
Only after the hero returns home do they see their original world from a new, more positive perspective, and we as the audience need to see and experience this moment as well.
In “It’s a Wonderful Life”, we get to see the joy in George Bailey as he returns home, faces the bank examiners and police, and receives help from so many friends that he no longer needs to worry about money or going to prison. George finally realizes his friends and family are the real treasure he’s been seeking all this time, and he’s had them all along without even knowing it.
In “Big”, Josh’s girlfriend follows him to the arcade machine and realizes he was telling the truth about a magical arcade machine turning him big. Josh tries to convince his girlfriend to use the arcade machine to turn back to a little girl so they can stay together, but she decides to stay as an adult.
This makes Josh sad to end his relationship with her, but also happy that he’s going to get to grow up as a kid again, which is what he really wants and has finally learned.
In “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy realizes how much she appreciates all her friends and relatives as she tells them of her adventures in Oz together. Finally, Dorothy happy exclaims, “There’s no place like home!”
The hero must learn to appreciate their original world through an emotional moment as the following movies demonstrate:
- “It’s a Wonderful Life” – George Bailey receives so many offers of help and money from so many friends that he realizes he has nothing to worry about. Even better, he’s back with his family, who didn’t exist when he was trapped in the nightmare world where he had never been born.
- “Big” – Josh is torn between wanting to stay with his girlfriend or going back to being a child again. That’s when he chooses to be a child again right in front of his girlfriend so she knows exactly what choice he made and can see him change before her eyes.
- “The Wizard of Oz” – Dorothy happily tells her friends and relatives about their adventures in Oz, even though they pretend it never happened. Still, their presence makes Dorothy happy and she finally realizes how much she loves her home.
- “Soul” – Joe plays jazz and goes into the zone where he can rescue his friend, a soul named 22. By helping her realize that a soul’s purpose is simply to enjoy life, Joe helps 22 return to Earth for the first time to live out her life as a human being. In return for helping 22 finally go to Earth, Joe gets a second chance to live again where he learns to appreciate everything about life that he had neglected before.
The “Realize life is already good” emotional logline is a tug of war between two worlds that the hero wants to explore. The hero wants to leave one world and live in a second world, but they need to learn that this second world is no better than their original world.
That’s when the hero needs to return to their original world with a fresh perspective on how wonderful their life really has been all this time. What initially seemed like flaws are actually hidden benefits that the hero just failed to see, and that surprising twist is what makes this emotional logline memorable.
(Updated versions of “The 15-Minute Movie Method“, “Story Starter“, “Emotional Log Lines” and “Writing Scenes For Screenplays” are now available on Amazon.)
