Tutorials Video

Loglines and Coverage: How Your Script Gets Summarised

Beginner · ~13 min

Overview

Two documents decide whether anyone reads your script properly. The logline is the sentence you write. Coverage is the report somebody else writes about you. Understanding both changes how you pitch and, more usefully, gives you a diagnostic: a story resisting a clean logline is usually a story with a structural problem rather than a marketing one.

What You Need

A finished script, or at least a finished story
The ability to state who your protagonist is in four words
Tolerance for reducing two years of work to one sentence
A friend who has not read it, for the test at the end

Steps

Learn the four parts a logline needs

A working logline carries a protagonist described by their relevant trait, a goal they are pursuing, the obstacle in the way, and what it costs to fail. Everything else is decoration. Names are usually decoration. Setting earns its place when the setting is the problem. Keep it to one sentence, two if the premise genuinely needs a setup.

Build yours from the want, not the plot

Start from your protagonist’s concrete want and the thing standing against it. The logline is the want, the obstacle and the stakes in one breath. Writers who start from plot summary produce a list of events and then wonder why it reads flat. The events are the least interesting part to anyone who has not seen the film.

Use the logline as a structural test

A story refusing to fit this shape is telling you something. No clear goal means no spine. No clear obstacle means no pressure. No stakes means nothing is at risk and no reason to keep watching. Plenty of writers find a real problem in their third act while trying to write a sentence about it, which is the most useful hour a logline ever buys you.

Understand what coverage is

Coverage is an internal report written by a reader for somebody too senior to read every submission. It typically carries a logline the reader wrote, a synopsis of the plot, comments on premise, structure, character and dialogue, and a verdict. It is written quickly, it is written to save a busy person time, and it follows your script around.

Know the three verdicts and their real weight

Coverage usually ends in pass, consider or recommend. Pass is the standard outcome and carries no shame. Consider means the reader thinks somebody should look closer. Recommend is rare enough for readers to weigh it carefully, because their own credibility rides on it. A reader who recommends often and wrongly stops being trusted, which is why the bar sits where it does.

Write to survive a fast read

Coverage is written by somebody reading quickly, often at the end of a day, often with several scripts to get through. This is an argument for clarity rather than an argument for dumbing down. Character names distinct enough to track, a first ten pages establishing who wants what, and white space on the page all help a tired reader stay with you. The script needing perfect attention to work is the script losing.

Pro Tips

Test your logline on somebody who has not read the script. If their first question is what happens, the logline works. If it is what do you mean, it does not.
Avoid adjectives doing the reader’s job. Calling your own story shocking or hilarious signals the premise is not carrying it.
A protagonist described by their relevant trait beats a name. "A retiring hitman" tells a reader more than "Frank" ever will.
Write the logline before the script as well as after. The two versions differing tells you what the script became while you were writing it.
Keep it under about forty words. Longer and a reader stops holding the whole thing in their head, which defeats the purpose.
Read published loglines for films you know. The gap between what the film contains and what the sentence promises is instructive.

Knowledge Base

What You'll Learn

The table shows what a coverage report contains. The section after it covers why a pass is the normal outcome and what to take from one.

What sits in a coverage report

Section	What it holds	What it reveals to you
Logline	The reader’s own one-sentence version	Whether your story reads as you think
Synopsis	The plot in a page or two	Which events registered and which vanished
Premise	Is the idea worth the film	Whether the hook survives a summary
Structure	Pace, act shape, where it sags	The same places your cold read flagged
Character	Are they distinct and motivated	Whether want and need came through
Dialogue	Voice, subtext, naturalism	Whether everyone sounds like you
Verdict	Pass, consider or recommend	What happens to the script next

A pass is the normal outcome

Readers cover a great many scripts and recommend few of them. The economics make this inevitable rather than cruel. A recommendation costs the reader something: they are staking their judgement, and a senior person spending an evening on a script which did not deserve it remembers who sent it.

So the base rate for a pass is high, and reading a pass as a verdict on your talent misreads the document entirely. It is a verdict on this script, read this fast, against this company’s current needs.

What is worth extracting is the reader’s logline and synopsis rather than their opinions. Those show you the film which arrived rather than the one you sent. Where their logline is not your story, you have found a communication failure sitting in the script, and it will affect every future reader until you fix it.

Where This Fits

This sits under Story Structure, the pillar for the story and editing side of the site. The Rewrite covers acting on what coverage tells you, and Screenplay Format covers the presentation a fast reader is relying on.

FAQ

Q: What makes a good logline?
A: A protagonist described by their relevant trait, a concrete goal, the obstacle, and the cost of failure, in one sentence. If it takes three sentences, the story usually has a structural problem rather than a phrasing one.

Q: How long should a logline be?
A: Roughly one sentence and under about forty words. Past there a reader stops holding the whole idea at once, which is the only thing a logline is for.

Q: What is script coverage?
A: An internal report a reader writes so a senior person does not have to read every submission. It contains a logline, a synopsis, comments and a verdict of pass, consider or recommend.

Q: Is a pass a rejection of my writing?
A: It is a decision about one script, read quickly, against what the company wants right now. Passes are the base rate. The useful part of the report is the reader’s own logline, which shows you the film which arrived.