Recently, a reader named Nicole wrote in asking the following question:

I just read your Script Doctor's column ONE SCRIPT, MANY VOICES and I was so pleased with his review of American Beauty. I too am a huge fan of this wonderfully scripted movie. My question for you is this, what was the log line for American Beauty?

As a new screenwriter, I have been writing by the Bible, the Screenwriters Bible that is. And throughout my studies I have been pounded in the head with the notion that every great screenplay must have a hero who has a specific goal where there is strong opposition to that goal leading to a crisis and an emotionally satisfying ending. I have read that you must be able to tell the story in one sentence, "This is the story about __________________ who _________________________ ."

Now call me crazy but I have seen a ton of excellent movies that do not comply with this standard. What exactly is the leniency for this standard if any and how do you go about convincing the Development Executive that you have a great story that doesn't comply with the standard? And in your words, what would you say for the log line for American Beauty?

Part I: A Necessary Evil

Before I dive in to the specifics of Nicole's question, a little professional background.

Log lines are not literary criticism. Nor are they movie reviews. Log lines are tools for the development process. A log line translates 120 pages of action into one simple idea. This is so that a busy development executive will have a reasonably accurate reference point for each script.

"I can't remember, which one is AMERICAN BEAUTY?" the executive asks.

Then her assistant reads the log line, which triggers a cascade of memories in the executive's head. Remember, she's probably read twenty other screenplays since she finished the last page of AMERICAN BEAUTY. But she's a professional, and given the reminder of the log line, she remembers.

"Oh yeah," the executive replies. "I know that one. I liked it." Then, she switches to business mode. "Who represents it? Is anyone attached?" Blah blah blah.

Log lines have a function.

Are they reductive? Yes.

Does that matter? No

Part II: AMERICAN BEAUTY

Let's turn to the factual question Nicole asks: what is the log line for AMERICAN BEAUTY?

It's a difficult question because there is never a single, authoritative log line for a script. Each script will have as many different log lines as there are readers.

Like everything else in the development game, log lines are intensely--sometimes annoyingly--subjective. In the rare instances when a screenwriter gets to read an analyst's coverage (although writers who submit screenplays to ScriptShark.com always gets to read the coverage), the log line will often, to the writer's way of looking at things, bear little resemblance to the story she lovingly crafted.

As it happens, I covered AMERICAN BEAUTY for a big production company years before the movie came out. Here's the log line I wrote:

"The arrival of a troubled family in a small New Jersey suburb collides with their new neighbor's midlife crisis; the result leads to murder, a frame-up, and two innocents going to prison."

Not bad, huh? A little long, maybe, but it does the job. Of course, this log line refers to the selling script, which was vastly different than the movie we eventually saw at the multiplex. (This is all covered in the earlier column, below.)

Now, here's the official DreamWorks SKG log line, the one that the studio's staff analyst assigned on first perusal of the first draft and that never changed thereafter. Drum roll, please:

"Stuck in a dull life and a loveless marriage, a man stakes out a new direction that ends up costing him his life."

The difference? In my log line, AMERICAN BEAUTY breaks the rule that a screenplay must be reducible to a story about hero X who performs action Y. In my log line, the screenplay splits the focus evenly between Lester Burnham and the newly arrived Fitts family. In the official DreamWorks log line, AMERICAN BEAUTY conforms to the rule, focusing exclusively on Lester as the hero of the story.

So, who is right? Short answer: who knows?

Long answer: My log line identifies the "whose story is this anyway" problem in AMERICAN BEAUTY that was pronounced in the selling script (which had an elaborate frame device concerning the investigation into Lester's murder, see old column below) and largely fixed in the final draft.

But the studio reader's log line nails the movie we saw in the theaters. The studio reader was prescient, perhaps thinking along these lines: "OK, this is an ensemble piece. We've got a ton of great characters here, and it all somehow hangs together, but why? If we have to boil this story down, then who functions as the narrative spine?"

Put that way, the only possible answer is Lester.

From the log line alone, I conclude that the studio reader loved the first draft of AMERICAN BEAUTY, that he believed in it, and that he knew that if he didn't boil down the plot to a clear log line that there was a chance nobody would read it.

Smart.

Part III: The Complex Question

Although talking about the AMERICAN BEAUTY log line is diverting, Nicole's other question is much more important:

I have read that you must be able to tell the story in one sentence, "This is the story about _____________ who ______________________ ."

Now call me crazy but I have seen a ton of excellent movies that do not comply with this standard. What exactly is the leniency for this standard if any and how do you go about convincing the Development Executive that you have a great story that doesn't comply with the standard?

As is so often the case, the issue does not concern the screenplay so much as the writer.

If you're reading this column then it's more than likely that you have never sold a screenplay, that you do not have an agent, and that the only people reading your script who will recognize your name are related to you.

New writers play by different rules than established writers.

Screenwriter Alan Ball could not have sold the quirky, rule-breaking AMERICAN BEAUTY as a brand-spankin'-new writer. Ball was an established New York playwright. Then, he wrote for two sitcoms--GRACE UNDER FIRE and CYBILL--for several years before he sold AMERICAN BEAUTY. He paid his dues. He had an extensive network of friends in the entertainment industry, active representation, and, most importantly, he had made a name for himself as a paycheck-cashing, supporting-himself-by-his-words, screenwriter.

Only then could Ball get the system to take AMERICAN BEAUTY seriously.

He won the Oscar. Now he writes what he wants.

If you are a new writer, then the simple answer to Nicole's question is YES.

Your screenplay has to tell one, clear, focused, interesting, intelligible story. That's it. Can your screenplay have a subplot? Sure. Can your screenplay have well-developed subsidiary characters? Not only can it, it must.

But you can only tell one story.

Why? Because your story WILL get boiled down to a log line, so there'd better be a coherent spine or the log line will reflect the story's narrative fuzziness.

There is no "leniency" with regard to this standard for new writers.

I call this the Belasco rule because it was first (and best) formulated by the great Broadway playwright and producer David Belasco:

"If you can't write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don't have a clear idea."