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Monday, October 8, 2007 . 5:11 PM

Sobriety Test #2 - Premise

The premise of a story is, basically, its theme. What is it about? Where does it start and where does it end? What is the cause and what is the effect? What is the moral of the story? The premise answers all of these questions succinctly but accurately.

One of the best introductions to the concept of the premise was written by Lajos Egri in his book The Art of Dramatic Writing. You can read the first chapter at http://www.writerswrite.com/fiction/egri.htm. His work was written primarily in relation to plays, but is applicable to just about any narrative writing.

The most notable things about his approach are his emphasis on premise as arising from character, and his notion of the explicit cause and effect nature of premises.

Some of his examples of premises include:

Bitterness leads to false gaiety.
Foolish generosity leads to poverty.
Honesty defeats duplicity.
Heedlessness destroys friendship.
Ill-temper leads to isolation.
Materialism conquers mysticism.
Prudishness leads to frustration.
Bragging leads to humiliation.
Confusion leads to frustration.
Craftiness digs its own grave.
Dishonesty leads to exposure.
Dissipation leads to self-destruction.
Egotism leads to loss of friends.
Extravagance leads to destitution.
Fickleness leads to loss of self-esteem.

Now that you have your protagonist in place, you can create your premise. Think back to the character's strength and flaw, his want and his need. If this is a positive story, the premise should describe how the strength leads to the achievement of the goal. For example, "Faith in friends leads to triumph over evil." With that statement, you've set up that the protagonist will succeed in his quest to defeat some evil by relying on his friends.

You can also think back to your antagonist's goal; whatever it is, the protagonist should probably keep her from achieving it, right? So your premise could also be a statement describing how the hero's strength leads to the villain's failure. For example, "A mother's love overcomes a kidnapper's greed."

Try to use your character's strength and need to create the premise for your story. It should be very brief, no more than a short sentence, and should have both a cause and an outcome. Keep it simple but precise; you can embellish with more details later, when we start to worry about plot. 0 comments

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