• #2

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Are you happy with your concept? Then grow a premise out of it. Premises involve a task to be accomplished and a character that must accomplish it in the midst of conflict. The following are the notes on the subject I gathered years ago from many books on writing. Warning: I can’t be arsed to order these notes into specific subsections.

• In the context of the concept, create a central issue: a problem to solve, an opportunity to seek, or some other milestone the hero needs to pursue and achieve to avoid dark consequences or achieve something wonderful.
• How does the story pose a dramatic question, generically stated as this: “will the hero achieve X?” with X standing in for what the hero needs or wants. If X doesn’t happen, it will yield dark consequences.
• A story inherently chronicles something that is changing. Usually that “something” revolves around a problem the protagonist must solve in order to actually get from the shores of “before” to the banks of “after”.
• How does the premise give a character some specific problem to solve and/or an opportunity to go for?
• Almost all successful plays, films and novels are about primal human desires: success (Legally Blonde), revenge (Falling Down), love (Notting Hill), survival (Alien) or the protection of one’s family or home (Straw Dogs). Why else would we consume a story so ravenously? Love, home, belonging, friendship, survival and self-esteem recur continually because they’re the subjects that matter to us most.
• Test a premise casting it as a experiment that the story would “validate”. Ex. “What’s the worst that could happen if I were to suspect that my uncle killed my father, took his position and married my mother?”
• What prompts the need for the task to be accomplished, turning the concept into a premise? Ex. “an evil power searches for a ring that’s been lost for ages, and in order to prevent him from taking over the world, that ring must be destroyed.”
• You need to give your character a challenge, a need, something to do, something with a purpose, something with stakes, and then layer in an antagonist force, a villain, who seeks to block the quest or path of your hero.
• How is the core story about what the character needs to do and accomplish to obtain peace and happiness?
• How is it about what the protagonist has to learn, to overcome, to deal with internally in order to solve the problem that the external plot poses?
• How would the plot force a protagonist to struggle with a problem, and in the process, change?
• The journey is one they’ve needed to take for a long time, and their goal is to change their lives for the better, not just return to zero.
• Is your hero proactively choosing to seize an opportunity that’s materialized rather than merely reacting to a problem (which is something anyone would do)?
• You need an antagonistic force (usually a villain) seeking to block your hero’s path, then another major twist that sets the hero toward an inevitable confrontation, perhaps with a final shocking twist that allows the hero to confront the villain and resolve the goal, one way or another.
• Does the core of the story ask a juicy dramatic question with vivid and urgent stakes?
• What is the story about dramatically? Who wants what, and why? What opposes that? What is at stake, and why? And what does your hero do about it?
• How is it a compelling situation that requires some specific action?
• How does the concept imbue this premise with compelling energy?
• How would the premise leverage the underlying power of concept to become bigger and better than before?
• Try to match your premise to this definition: “a story is how what happens affects someone who is trying to achieve what turns out to be a difficult goal, and how he or she changes as a result.”
• Does your premise involve a hero meeting their opposite, assimilating it and changing?
• Could the premise revolve around something unexpected happening that throws a monkey wrench into someone’s well-laid plans?
• Does it plunk someone with a clear goal into an increasingly difficult situation they have to navigate?
• Does your premise involve a character who wants something badly and is having trouble getting it?
• Does it involve someone with some passion needing to deal with a situation in the midst of huge conflict?
• Does your hero have a problem or an opportunity that calls for a response in the face of opposition to the goal? Is something at stake?
• Would this premise translate into an in-the-moment story, one that showcases all the character facets you hold near and dear and positions them as catalysts, obstacles and complications with an external hero’s quest?
• How does this premise relate to the dichotomy between the external world (how we live among our fellow man pursuing what we want) and the internal world (how we find peace within ourselves by getting what we need)?
• How does the story involve at least one character being thrown into an alien world, a place that represents everything outside their previous existence?
• Is there a single yes/no question to be answered by the end of the story? Ex., “Will Dorothy get back home?”