Nobody ever watches their favorite movies for the plot. That’s because they already know what’s going to happen. Instead, people watch their favorite movies over and over again because of the emotional experience they want to feel. Therefore, if you want to write the strongest screenplay possible, you must focus on creating a specific emotional experience right from the start.
Yet few screenwriting books ever tell you to do that. Even worse, they don’t even tell you how to do that.
Most screenwriting books will tell you to create a logline, which summarizes what happens in a story. While this can be helpful in clarifying your story, such a logline only focuses on the plot that explains what happens. Unfortunately, such a logline fails to focus on the emotional aspect of your story. That’s why you also need an emotional logline.
An emotional logline defines the one emotional problem your hero must resolve to make their life drastically better.
The key is that resolving the emotional problem literally changes the world of the hero as a major life-altering event, which is what makes it so important. If this life-altering event fails to occur, there will be no second chances. It either dramatically improves the hero’s life forever or the opportunity is gone for good.
When Luke in “Star Wars” decides to trust the Force, he either blows up the Death Star (and saves Princess Leia) or the Death Star blows up the rebel base along with Princess Leia. There are no second chances.
When Elle in “Legally Blonde” decides to take over as the lawyer for the defendant, she’s either going to win so the defendant can go free, or she’s going to lose and the defendant will go to prison, even though she’s innocent and Elle will feel responsible.
When Andy in “The Shawshank Redemption” finally puts his plan in action, he’s either going to escape prison and get revenge on the corrupt warden, or he’s going to fail and remain in prison for the rest of his life.
In many cases, the hero’s physical goal may be clear but their emotional problem may be less obvious with seemingly no connection to the physical goal whatsoever. Despite any lack of an obvious connection, pursuing the physical goal (plot) forces the hero to face and resolve their emotional problem.
The following movies define the plot logline that eventually forces the hero to resolve the emotional logline:
- “Little Miss Sunshine”
- Plot logline – Olive, the hero, wants to compete in beauty pageant
- Emotional logline – Olive needs to bring her dysfunctional family together
- “Die Hard”
- Plot logline – One man must fight an army of terrorists alone in a skyscraper
- Emotional logline – John McClane, the hero, needs to acknowledge that his own arrogance is what threatens to break up his marriage
- “Legally Blonde”
- Plot logline – A bubbly California blonde tries to win back her boyfriend by attending Harvard law school with him
- Emotional logline – Elle, the hero, must learn that she doesn’t need to be dependent on a man because she’s strong and independent on her own
- “The Shawshank Redemption”
- Plot logline – A man, unjustly imprisoned for life, must find a way to escape prison and regain his freedom
- Emotional logline – Andy, the hero, must cling to hope while surrounded with despair
- “Miss Congeniality”
- Plot logline – A tomboy FBI agent must go undercover at a beauty pageant to find a criminal
- Emotional logline – Gracie, the hero, must learn to embrace her feminine side
- “Soul”
- Plot logline – An aspiring musician wants nothing more than to become a professional jazz musician
- Emotional logline – Joe, the hero, must learn that there’s more to life than just obsessively pursuing your dream at the expense of ignoring everything else in life
If you focus solely on creating a story based on a plot logline, you risk writing a story that lacks any emotional meaning. By defining an emotional logline for your hero (and other main characters), you define an emotional problem that your hero must resolve, which creates a powerful emotional experience. The more important the emotional problem and the consequences for failure, the greater the emotional experience.
The plot logline provides a path to resolve the hero’s emotional problem.
The emotional logline defines the one emotional problem the hero must resolve to create a better life.
If the hero fails to resolve their emotional problem, their life will forever remain miserable. Imagine if Andy in “The Shawshank Redemption” never escaped from prison, if Elle in “Legally Blonde” remained dependent on a man to be happy, or if Luke in “Star Wars” never trusted the Force.
The emotional logline defines a dilemma where the hero gets pulled in two opposite paths. The hero starts at the negative end of the dilemma and gradually inches their way towards the positive end of the dilemma.
In every major scene, the hero must choose between the negative end of the dilemma or the positive end. The negative end often offers temptations to make the hero’s life easier, but at the cost of giving up hope of every obtaining the positive end of the dilemma ever again.
In “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the villain, Mr. Potter, offers the hero, George Bailey, a job to work for him instead of running the savings and loan. A job with Mr. Potter offers more money and security, while running the savings and loan constantly means being poor with no security whatsoever.
Therefore, George is tempted to take Mr. Potter’s job offer until he realizes if he does that, his dreams for the savings and loan to help people will be gone for good. That’s when George turns down Mr. Potter’s job offer.
Every story keeps us in suspense as we wonder which end of a dilemma the hero will choose in every major scene. The more important this change is to the hero, the more important it will be to the audience as well.
The fate of your hero depends on resolving a single emotional problem or else their entire life will fail forever.
If the dialogue in your scenes don’t increase in intensity and emotion, you probably need to rewrite your dialogue. Each scene should gradually increase in intensity until reaching an explosive point that leaves no doubt about the outcome.
