Chapter 2; Premise

Question 1

What is premise?

Answer 1

Your story stated in one sentence. The simplest combination of character and plot, typically consisting of some event that starts the action, the main character, and some sense of the outcome.

Question 2

What are the 10 steps to making a good premise?

Answer 2

1. Write something that may change your life.
2. Look for what’s possible
3. Identify the story’s problem and challenges
4. Find the designing principle
5. Determine your best character in the idea
6. Get a sense of central conflict
7. Get a sense of single cause and effect pathway
8. Determine your heros possible character change
9. Figure out the heros possible moral choice
10. Gauge audience appeal

Question 3

What 4 things are needed for the premise?

Answer 3

1. High concept. Can be reduced to a catchy one line that interests people.
2. Your premise is your inspiration. The “ah ha!” moment, when you go “now that’s a terrific story”. That same excitement will give you the perseverance to keep going forever.
3. For better or worse, your premise = your prison. You’ll come up with many more ideas after it but you can’t work on them until it’s finished.
4. It’s the one desicion every idea after follows, it all comes from this.

Question 4

What is the 1st technique for writing a premise?

Answer 4

For finding the gold idea is time. Take a lot of it when beginning your writing process. Like weeks, explore your story’s grand strategy. Remain flexible and open to all possibilities.

Question 5

What is the 2nd step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 2nd step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 5

Look for what’s possible.

Writers don’t know how to find their story’s true potential because of a lack of experience and techniques. Look for where the idea might go.

Question 6

What is the 3rd step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 3rd step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 6

Identify the story’s challenges and problems.

Each story has their own set of rules, or challenges. You can’t escape them, nor do you want to. Spot the inherent problems at the premise line.

Question 7

What is the 4th step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 4th step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 7

Find the designing principle.

Given the promises and problems with your premise, you must now come up with an overall strategy on how you will tell your story.

Premise is concrete, while designing principle is abstract.

Question 8

What is the 5th step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 5th step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 8

Determine your best character in the idea.

Choose the most fascinating, challenging, and complex character, even if your character isn’t particularly likeable. The reason why is because that is where your interest or the audiences interests will inevitably go.

If you can’t find one in your idea then move on. If you find him but he’s not the main character, change the premise so that he is.

Question 9

What is the 6th step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 6th step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 9

Get a sense of the central conflict.

Once you have an idea of who is driving the story, figure out what the story is about at an essential level. Write it out in one sentence. That answer to that is what your story is really about, all conflicts will stem from this one issue. Keep this answer and the designing principle out with you at all times when writing your story.

Question 10

What is the 7th step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 7th step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 10

Get a sense of single cause and effect pathway. If you notice your premise split into 2 cause effect paths like this “A man falls in love with a women and fights his brother for control over the winery”. Use your tech to spot the problems so you can make a simple change to turn it into cause and effect. “Through the love of a good woman, a man defeats his brother for control over the winery “.

Question 11

What is the 8th step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 8th step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 11

Determine your heros possible character change.

After your designing premise, the most important thing to gleaming from your premise line is the fundamental character change in your hero. This is what gives your audience the sense of satisfaction even if the change is negative like in breaking bad.

The simple logic of a story works like this: How does the act of struggling to do the basic action lead to the character to change from W to C?

The basic action should be the one action best able to force the character to deal with their weakness to change.

Question 12

What is the 9th step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 9th step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 12

Figure out the heros possible moral choice.

Central theme of the story is often clear by the moral choice the hero must make, typically near the end. Theme is expressed in your moral argument. The most important step in the moral argument is the final moral choice you give them.

A lot of writers make the mistake of making a fake choice. A fake choice is one between postive and negative. Like choosing between going to jail or getting with a girl.

A true choice is between 2 positives or avoid 1 of 2 negatives.

Make the options as equal as possible, with one seemingly better than the other like at the end of better call saul.

Question 13

What is the 10th step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 10th step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 13

Gauge Audience Appeal.

When your finished with your premise work, ask yourself one final question. “Is this single story line unique enough to interest a lot of other people besides me?”
This is a question of popularity and commercial appeal.

You should always write for yourself first; but you shouldn’t only write for yourself.

One of the biggest mistakes artists fall into is thinking they have to write what i care about, or write what sells.

Remember this; sometimes you have an idea you must simply write, even though no one will like it. Remember you’ll have many more ideas throughout your life time.

Question 14

What is the 1st step to writing a premise?

Describe what the 1st step to writing a premise is about.

Answer 14

Write a story that will change your life. Because if you write something that’s important to you, then it may be important to alot of people in the audience. When you finish writing the story, no matter what else happens, you have changed your life.

Question 15

How can you write something that can change your life?

Answer 15

Self exploration. To have a chance to change your life, get some data on who you are. Get it out side and in front of you.

Question 16

What are 2 exercises for self exploration?

Answer 16

1. Wish list of ideas you would like to see in a comic, game, movie or book. Things your passionately interested in and what entertains you.
2. Premise list, express each in one sentence. This forces you to be clear with your idea.
3. Compare both lists and look for core elements that repeat themselves on both lists. Find the key patterns or the rarest form of you.

Question 17

What is the best technique for finding where a story idea could go?

Open a book or game with a story, after going through it, try using the technique on the story idea.

Answer 17

The best technique is to ask yourself, “what if”. The question leads to 2 places: your story idea and your mind. The question let’s you define what is or isn’t allowed in the story world.

Question 18

What is the designing principle?

Answer 18

Your overall story strategy, stated in one line. Helps you extend the premise deep into the structure. It’s what organizes the story and makes it original.

(Story process + original execution)

The story idea (premise) + ???????????????????????

Question 19

How do you determine your best character?

Answer 19

Ask yourself “who do I love?”.

To find this, ask; do I want to see them act? Do I love the way they think? Do I care about the challenges they over come?

Question 20

How do you find out the central conflict?

Answer 20

Asks yourself “who fights whom over what?” And answer it in one sentence. That answer to that is what your story is really about, all conflicts will stem from this one issue. Keep this answer and the designing principle out with you at all times when writing your story.

Question 21

What is single cause and effect pathway?

Answer 21

A leads to B, leads to C, all the way to Z. The spine of your story.

Question 22

How do you find the single cause and effect pathway?

Answer 22

Ask yourself “what’s my hero’s basic action?”

Question 23

What is character change?

Answer 23

Character change is what your hero experiences by going through his struggle. At its simplest level, it can be represented by this formula (WxA=C).

W= Weakness, both moral and psychological.
A= The struggle to accomplish basic action in the middle of the story.
C= The changed person.

Question 24

How do you find human growth? Can you spot it in real life?

Answer 24

To find human growth, start with basic action and then go to the opposites of the action.

Question 25

What is theme?

Answer 25

Theme is your proper view of how people must act in the world. Theme is expressed by your moral argument.

Question 26

What is the moral argument?

Answer 26

The moral argument is where you make a case for how people should live through the actions of a character.

Question 27

Creating your premise; writing exercise checklist.

Answer 27

1. Premise: Write down your premise in one sentence, ask yourself if the premise has makings of a story that could change your life. 2. Wish list and premise list: Write down your wish list and study list. Study them to identify the core elements of what you care about. 3. Possibilities: look for what's possible in the premise, Write down the options 4. Story challenges and problems: Describe as many of the story challenges and problems that are unique to the idea you can think of. 5. Designing principle: Come up with the designing principle of your story idea. Remember this designing principle describes the deeper process of the form in which the story will play out in a unique way. 6. Best character: Determine your best character in that idea, make them the hero of that premise. 7. Conflict: Ask yourself "who is my hero fighting and what is he fighting about?" 8. Basic action: Find the single cause and effect pathway by identifying a basic action that your hero will take in the story. 9. Character change: Figure out the possible character change for your hero, starting with the basic action, then going to the opposites of the basic action to determine his weakness at the beginning and his change at the end. 10. Moral choice: Lost a moral choice your hero may have to make near the end of the story. Make sure it's a difficult but plausible choice. 11. Audience appeal: Ask yourself if your premise is likely to appeal to a wider audience. If not, go back to the drawing board.