Everyday Canvas

Sunday Focus: Premise

Recently I read a book on Premise.
Powerful Premise: Writing the Irresistible (Red Sneaker Books) by William Bernhardt

In the blurb it says:
“A powerful premise is what separates ordinary novels from bestsellers. William Bernhardt explains the essential elements of breakout books, stories that reel in readers and attract serious attention. He discusses all the essential elements: originality, high stakes, believability, inescapable conflict, emotional appeal, and others. Plus, in the final chapter, Bernhardt explains how to turn your powerful premise into a winning pitch to attract agents and editors.”

The book is all that and then some; however, the “and then some” part got to me. Premise, to my understanding, is what we come up with, before we start writing. Reading the book, however, gave me the idea that the way the author described it, it could only be written after the full story is written, or at least, after its first draft is finished.

This in itself is not a bad idea, if one has finished the first draft and is about to rewrite the novel. For promoting and introducing the novel to an agent or a publisher, it could be priceless. However, it is not the premise we can use before we put the first word in the first chapter.

On the other hand, this book can be used in its entirety for learning how to write fiction, a novel, or a short story, as it encompasses a lot of good material. For premise before the first draft, however, we need as short a form as we can get to guide us along the way.

I agree that knowing as much of the premise as one can helps the writing. Some teachers say to find the premise of a story we are reading is to find the end and then the beginning and figure out how that change came about, but that is for reading, and another after-the-fact advice.

The best premise advice I came across is in another book on writing by James N. Frey, titled The Key. He says to think of four C’s and make the premise statement include those four elements, which are: Conviction or the idea of the author, Character, Conflict, Conclusion. This I can live with better, as I can more or less use it before beginning the writing process.