How to Write a Logline for an Arabic Screenplay

Before anyone reads your script, they read one sentence about it. On a submission form, in an email to a producer, on the first line of a lab application, that sentence is your logline. It often decides whether the rest gets opened at all.

Most writers treat it as an afterthought, something to squeeze out once the script is finished. It works far better the other way round. A good logline is a tool for writing, and only later a tool for selling.

What a logline actually is

A logline is one sentence that tells the reader who the story is about, what disrupts their life, what they want, and what stands in the way. It is not a tagline and it is not a summary of the plot. It does not reveal the ending. It makes someone who has never heard of your story want to know what happens next.

A simple formula that works

• The protagonist, described by one useful trait rather than a name, for example a retired translator or a young pharmacist.
• The disruption, the event that pushes them out of their ordinary life.
• The goal, what they now need to do or get.
• The obstacle or the stakes, what makes it hard or what they stand to lose.

A worked example

Here is an invented example. When a retired translator in Cairo discovers that the letters she has been translating for years are really a confession, she must decide whether to deliver them to the man who wrote them or to the family he wronged.

You can see all four parts. The protagonist is a retired translator. The disruption is the discovery. The goal is to deliver the letters. The stakes are the choice between two people. There is no name, no ending and no adjective doing the work that the situation should do.

Mistakes that weaken a logline

• Giving the hero a name. A reader has no attachment to a name yet, but they understand a role.
• Using vague adjectives such as gripping or powerful. Show the situation and let the reader decide.
• Describing the theme instead of the story. A story about love and loss is not a logline.
• Cramming in a subplot. One protagonist, one problem.
• Revealing the ending. The logline should create a question, not answer it.

Writing it in Arabic

Arabic makes it easy to write long, elegant sentences with chains of clauses, which is exactly what a logline should avoid. Keep it to one sentence with one main verb. Openers such as حين or عندما, followed by the disruption, give the sentence a natural shape and keep it easy to read aloud. Read the Arabic version out loud. If you run out of breath, cut it.

Write it in clear modern Arabic, without unnecessary tashkeel. Save the diacritics for the dialogue that needs them.

Where the logline goes next

Once it is sharp, it works everywhere. It goes at the top of your synopsis, in the email to a producer, and in the application for a lab or a fund. If you are deciding where to send a finished script, read where to submit your Arabic screenplay. And if you are still at the start, the complete guide to writing a screenplay in Arabic shows where the logline fits in the process.

You can start writing and formatting on the free plan before deciding on anything else. Compare the plans on the pricing page.