If you only had one sentence, could you make someone care?
From memory
Think of a project, initiative, or idea you've been involved in recently — something that matters to you professionally. Now imagine you step into a lift with someone important. You have one floor. Describe it in a single sentence.
Hollywood screenwriters have known this for decades: if you can't describe your story in one sentence, you don't understand it yet. They call it the logline — and it's the single most important sentence in any pitch.
The same principle applies in every boardroom, investor meeting, and strategy presentation you'll ever give. The person who can say in one sentence what others need a paragraph to explain is the person who controls the room.
This isn't about dumbing things down. It's about compression under pressure — finding the essential shape of an idea and expressing it with precision.
Four elements. One sentence. Infinite applications.
THE LOGLINE FORMULA
Every compelling one-sentence story has these four elements, even when they're disguised:
Somebody — a specific actor (person, team, company). Not "we" or "the industry." Someone the listener can picture.
Wants something — a clear goal or desire. The clearer the want, the more the listener leans in.
But — the obstacle, tension, or complication. This is the engine of the sentence. Without "but," you have a press release, not a story.
So — the action, the resolution, the forward momentum. What happens next? What must be done?
Small business owners need to understand their finances, but accounting software is built for accountants, not humans, so we built a tool that turns your bank feed into plain-English insights every morning.
Our engineering team has the talent to lead the industry, but our release cycle is so slow that competitors ship in weeks what takes us months, so we're restructuring into autonomous squads that own their code from commit to customer.
I spent twenty years watching brilliant leaders lose rooms full of people because they couldn't turn their expertise into a story anyone cared about, so now I teach the architecture of strategic storytelling.
The power of "but": Notice that in every example, removing the "but" clause kills the sentence. "Small business owners need to understand their finances, so we built a tool" — flat. The obstacle is what creates the gap the listener wants to see closed. It's the same principle as the "Complication" in SCR from Lesson 1.
Let's build loglines together, then you'll fly solo.
Each of these attempts is missing something. Identify the problem and fix it — out loud first, then write your improved version.
"We're building an AI-powered platform that uses machine learning and natural language processing to transform how enterprises manage their customer relationships through automated, data-driven insights."
No "but." There's no tension, no obstacle, no reason to care. It's also drowning in jargon — "AI-powered platform" tells you nothing about who it helps or why it matters. And "we" is faceless. A stronger version might be: "Sales teams lose deals because their CRM tells them what happened yesterday but not what to do tomorrow — so we built one that predicts what each customer needs before they ask."
"The healthcare system is broken and patients suffer."
No "somebody" and no "so." It's a complaint, not a story. There's no specific actor, no forward momentum, no action. Who is suffering? What kind of suffering? What can be done? A logline needs a protagonist and a direction.
Write a logline for each of these. Use the formula: Somebody + wants + but + so. One sentence each.
A project you're currently working on
Your company or organisation (as a whole)
A problem your industry faces
The real test: can you do this live, with no preparation time?
For each prompt below, you have 30 seconds to formulate a logline and say it out loud. No writing first. Think on your feet.
You've just been asked by an investor: "What does your company actually do?"
A journalist asks: "In one sentence, why should anyone care about this problem?"
Your CEO asks you to explain a new initiative to the board — but you only get one sentence before questions start.
Which prompt was hardest? What made it harder?
Take something complex. Make it simple. Then make it simpler.
Think of something complex you deal with at work — a strategy, a product, a transformation. Write it in three versions, each one shorter:
Round 1: The paragraph (3-4 sentences)
Round 2: The sentence (1 sentence, max 30 words)
Round 3: The headline (max 8 words)
Explain — out loud — why compression is a storytelling skill and not just an editing exercise. What does the process of cutting force you to do with your thinking?
From Lessons 1 and 2 — from memory only.
Lesson 1: Story Structures
1. What are the three story structures? Give a one-sentence description of each.
Lesson 2: Origin Story
2. Name the five steps of the Defining Moment method.
3. The logline formula has a "but" — which element from Lesson 1's SCR structure does it correspond to?
1. SCR (problem drives the story), BAB (transformation drives the story), Nested Loops (layered stories create resonance).
2. The World Before → The Crack → The Struggle → The Becoming → The Gift.
3. The "but" in a logline IS the Complication from SCR. It's the tension engine — the thing that makes the listener need to hear what comes next.
From memory. No peeking.
1. What are the four elements of the logline formula?
2. Why is the "but" the most important element?
3. What's the difference between compression and oversimplification?
1. Somebody + wants something + but something's in the way + so they must act.
2. Because without the obstacle, there's no tension — and without tension, there's no story. The "but" is what makes someone lean in. It creates the gap the listener wants to see closed.
3. Compression preserves the essential truth and adds precision. Oversimplification strips away meaning. The test: does your one sentence make someone want to hear more, or does it make them shrug?
Where in your professional life this week could you use a logline? A meeting? An email? A pitch?
How confident are you with that statement right now?
1 = not yet | 5 = absolutely
Next time: Show, Don't Tell — replacing vague claims with vivid evidence that lands.