1 Blueprint for determining the premise of your first story
How to not waste time on a story that is going nowhere
Without a clear premise, your story will fall flat.
You can have beautiful prose, interesting characters, but if your premise is weak the story will not stick. That's why you should figure out the premise of your story early on to avoid wasting time. Especially if you plan to write your first long-form story like a novel or screenplay.
Legendary screenwriter and director John Truby in his book The Anatomy Of Story provides a blueprint on how to find the premise for your first story.
Using his formula you are guaranteed to find a premise that works before you waste time on what doesn't work.
What you choose to write about is far more important than any decision you make about how to write it.
What is a Premise
The premise is a pithy one-line summary of your story.
Your premise is the inspiration for your whole story, so it better be good if you hope to stay motivated through all the challenges of writing a long form story. It's important to spend a lot of time at the beginning figuring out your premise before diving in too deep. Condensing it down to one sentence forces you to be clear, exposing weaknesses hidden in complication.
John Truby says choose a premise that will change your life, if it’s something close to your heart then you can’t go wrong.
Finding the Designing Principle
The designing principle is what makes your story original and stand out from the rest.
A designing principle is the internal logic of a story that gives it a unique angle. If the premise is concrete, the designing principle is more abstract and difficult to pin down. In fact, most stories don't have a designing principle.
The trick is to tease out the designing principle from your premise using the possibilities generated by that premise.
MOSES, IN THE BOOK OF EXODUS
Premise: When an Egyptian prince discovers that he is a Hebrew, he leads his people out of slavery.
Designing Principle: A man who does not know who he is struggles to lead his people to freedom and receives the new moral laws that will define him and his people.
Finding the Possibilities
Most story ideas begin with a "What If" scenario.
In his recent story published in the New Yorker, Murakami said the story arose from the what if scenario of a man telling a woman that she is ugly on a first date. George Saunders in his newsletter also says his stories begin with a what if scenario.
A good premise is rife with interesting possibilities that you feel eager to explore. You don't need to flesh out these possibilities at this stage, in fact you may want to leave them open for exploration later as you write them. These possibilities are the promises you are making to the reader, or the expectations they will have in their minds.
A good story will address our expectations, but not too neatly. During this exploration of possibilities the goal is to find the path with the most potential.
If you are having trouble coming up with premises for your story, that could be a sign that there are issues with your premise.
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