What is a story premise?
A story premise answers the question: What is my story about? And does so as succinctly as possible.
Why is a premise important?
It focuses your story.
How do you write one?
Let me introduce you to my good buddy Dwight Swain. Can I just say that Techniques of the Selling Writer is one of my all time favorite craft books? Some people say it’s a laborious read. I say the labor is well worth it.
According to Dwight, a story premise has five elements:
- Character
- Situation (what’s the backdrop of trouble that forces character to act?)
- Objective (character’s story goal)
- Opponent (no opponent = no conflict = no story)
- Disaster (the unutterably awful thing that could happen)
You should do your best to make each of these elements as specific and concrete as possible, and put them together to form two sentences. No more. No less.
Sentence 1: A statement that establishes character, situation, and objective
Sentence 2: A question that pinpoints the opponent and disaster.
There is wide-spread debate over whether or not to put a question in your premise. You decide if you want to make the second sentence a question or not.
Let’s look at the Wizard of Oz.
- Character: Dorothy
- Situation: tornado brings her to Oz
- Objective: get to the Wizard of Oz so she go home
- Opponent: the wicked witch of the west, who wants her ruby slippers
- Disaster: never going home
Sentence 1: When a tornado drops her house in the middle of a strange world (situation), a teenage girl named Dorothy (character) must find her way to Oz so she can talk the wizard into sending her home (objective).
Sentence 2: But will the wicked witch of the west, who wants Dorothy’s magic slippers (opponent), stop her from ever seeing home again (disaster)?
Put it together and you get the premise of Wizard of Oz:
When a tornado drops her house in the middle of a strange world, a teenage girl named Dorothy must find her way to Oz so she can talk the wizard into sending her home. But will the Wicked Witch of the West, who wants Dorothy’s magic slippers, stop her from ever seeing home again?
Here’s an example from one of my novels:
- Character: widowed mother, Robin Price
- Situation: neighboring businesses are struggling and so is her cafe
- Goal: keep her husband’s memory alive through the walls of her cafe
- Opponent: handsome project manager who wants to buy her out
- Disaster: losing everything she’s held on to since her husband died
Premise: Even though business isn’t doing well, widowed mother, Robin Price, is determined to keep her husband’s memory alive through the walls of her cafe. But when a handsome and charming businessman comes to town with plans to buy her out, will Robin lose everything she’s held on to since her husband’s death?
Question to Ponder: Have you ever written a premise? What do you include? Do you follow Swain’s formula, or do you have one of your own? If you have any tips, please share them here!
I just added this web site to my rss reader, great stuff. Can not get enough!
Thanks for the helpful blog.
Thank you for this post, as well. Looks very useful. I appreciate the writing help you offer on your blog!
I've tried the one sentence approach. I like this one that allows two sentences. I was thinking about it just this morning. I'm planning on buying the book, Plot and Structure, recommended by a few writer friends. I'll take a look at your suggestion, too.
Great post! Very well explained. I wrote my premise after the first draft was complete. It really helped me focus my story.
I've never written a premise, but I must say yours sure make me want to read more about Robin's cafe.
This is a great exercise. I haven't written a premise before, but I think now I will.
I love this exercise. I haven't written a premise, but I think I'm going to try.
Thanks for this helpful post! Using this formula will definitely help me write a stronger premise — and since I'm a "pantser" at heart and tend to start writing with little more than a premise, I need a strong one! Thanks. 🙂
Ha! I usually have to write the premise AFTER I've written the story, but I bet it would be easier to write it first!
This is a fantastic post! I love concrete things that I can apply to my WiP. Not only does it help me see what I do well, but it helps me see what I don't. Thanks, Katie!
Awesome post – I'm bookmarking! 🙂
So glad I stumbled across your blog this morning! I am following you now on twitter and here and look forward to reading more 🙂 I have read a lot about premise and writing your pitch and loglines, but the clear way you presented here really spoke to my visual learning tendencies. Along the same lines, wanted to complement you on your blog design. Very neat, clean and easy to look at 🙂 Happy Writing
Hi Katie –
Thanks. Maybe this will help me write a pitch for my book.
Blessings,
Susan 🙂
Oh, this is excellent, Katie! I'm going to do this BEFORE my next story. I have to get Swain's book. I've heard so many great things about it!
Have a wonderful week.
That's a great way to explain how to do it. I tried it right away and it worked.
Perfect! What an easy (at least you made it look easy!) explanation.
I always condense my book into one sentence of 15 words or less before I start writing. Then I expand on it. Fun!
Oh wow, great post Katie. I agree with Anne. Valuable stuff here. And I agree, labor is well worth it. I will buy this book. If it helped you, I know it will help me. 🙂
I've not done this. Yet.
I love that you find labor rewarding. So many young people hate the W word,and will labor to avoid it. Not you.
God will honor your excellent attitude, Katie.
Love
Jen
This is So valuable! I'm going to run my novels through this outline and see what I come up with!
This is So valuable! I'm going to run my novels through this outline and see what I come up with!
This is also great advice for writing that ever-terrifying query letter and one paragraph pitch, too! Great post, Katie!
The important thing for me to remember when writing a premise is that the first three hundred or so attempts are going to be failures. (Okay, not that many, but you get the idea.)
I somehow need to purge my brain of all the things I THINK the story is about to get to the real premise.
Then I spend a while fine tuning and sharpening the premise, looking for ways to trim it down.
And I'm totally up for brainstorming after your conference week. 🙂
Excellent exercise! I'm going to try it with my own story…
Character: Janie Marelli
Situation: father dies, so she must come home to attend the funeral, where she finds out that her former neighbor in jail for attempted murder has a parole hearing coming up
Objective: to figure out what exactly went on between Elijah (alleged attempted murderer) and Meagen (girl he allegedly tried to kill)
Opponent: Tucker (Janie's childhood best friend who has always hated Elijah and is reluctant to admit he could've been wrong all this time)
Disaster: An innocent man could be imprisoned for the rest of his life.
I so need to copy this down…Thanks for the exercise! I think it really helped. 🙂
That formula seems so simple and concise. Love it! :O)
Another good post! I love writing these little blurbs because I usually end up learning more about my story than I did before hand. But again, being a SOTP writer, I don't usually do this until after the first draft is done.
A month before the conference I think I spit out hundreds of these in a notebook.
It's challenging but worth it to keep at it until you find one where the words invite the listener to engage in the story–to want more!
~ Wendy
This is the kind of exercise that makes most writers cringe. I definitely need to buy this book, because I love how you presented this. This is almost exactly what I think agents and editors want to hear in a pitch as well. It would get a great conversation started about the book you want them to fall in love with. Thanks, Katie!