All great novels contain a strong story premise.
Briefly, let’s review novel essentials:
- Strong premise
- Conflict
- Protagonist
- Antagonist
- Goals
- Stakes
The premise is your story idea stated in 2-3 sentences. Can you refine it into an elevator pitch? It often becomes a part of your marketing. Think movie tag lines and you’ve got the beginnings.
It is going to guide you as you write your story, but it is not your plot.
Examples of beginning premises:
- Aliens come to Earth.
- Boy meets girl.
- Man travels through time.
Depending on what you add to these you could get:
- Aliens come to Earth, War of the Worlds or E.T.
- Boy meets girl, Pride and Prejudice or You’ve Got Mail
- Man travels through time, The Time Machine or Back to the Future.
Donald Maass, in his book Writing the Breakout Novel, names 4 elements to a strong premise:
- plausibility
- inherent conflict
- originality
- gut emotional appeal
None of the above premises contain Maass’ 4 essentials. In fact, for me, these are so overdone that you’d have to work hard to bring originality to them.
Examine your present story idea. Does it contain the above 4 essentials? If not, spend some time further developing your story or lay that idea aside for now.
Developing your premise before you start your draft can save you hours of work. You don’t spend time on a story that isn’t going to work, and you don’t go down the wrong plot path.
Sample of complete story premise:
The world is on the verge of a pandemic. One man owns the patent to the cure. Who will live and who will die?
We are unique, and we bring that uniqueness to our stories. Four writers could be given the above premise, and each story would be different.
Every James Bond movie has the same idea: an evil threatens the world, James Bond must save the world. Every boy-meets-girl romance story has the same premise, but it’s the story settings, character goals, and conflicts that make each one different.
For more on this topic, read my previous post “Story Premise: What Is It and How to Develop It”