Memorable novels start with a great premise. What if religious fundamentalists took over the United States and forced women into a form of sexual slavery that requires them to be surrogate mothers for the wives of the new nation’s leaders? What if the historical War of the Rose was told in an epic fantasy setting? What if books were outlawed?
Unfortunately, a lot of unmemorable novels also start with a great premise. The difference? There’s no story to support the concept. In a guest post on Writers in the Storm, Janice Hardy offers advice for turning your great premise into a sustainable plot.
First, she offers some signs of a “premise novel”: lots of POV characters, no clear protagonist, no personal risk to the characters, lack of rising tension. Do you have a premise novel. Hardy suggests you try to describe your novel in one sentence: “Protagonist has X problem and needs to do Y to win Z or Q happens.”
“If you can’t, that’s a red flag you might be looking at a premise novel,” Hardy says. Also, don’t mistake your theme for your story. Your story may be “about” love or greed, but that doesn’t describe your actual story.
Hardy suggests a few steps you can take to fix a premise novel:
- Find the core conflict. “Look for a tangible problem that must be resolved to prevent/trigger/avoid or whatever this idea is about,” she explains. “What’s going wrong in this story? What’s the one thing that must be resolved or else? What’s at the center of your premise?”
- Limit yourself to one or two protagonists. Choose the person who can solve the story problem and set up your scenario so that something bad will happen to them if they do not. “Who has the most to lose in your premise?” Hardy asks. “Who has the ability to act or change the outcome? Who has the story you want to explore?”
- Pick an antagonist. Who is standing in the way of your MC’s success? It’s often the person who caused the problem. Ask who has something to gain from the conflict and whose agenda conflicts with your protagonist’s. Your plot will start coming together as each character pursues their goal.
- Find the motivation: “Look for reasons why your protagonist needs to solve this problem (beyond the ‘or they die’ type stakes),” Hardy advises. “What’s personal about this problem? What would cause someone in their position to undertake this task?”
- Determine the stakes. What will happen if your hero fails?
Finally, Hardy says you should prepare yourself for a lot of editing and rewriting. Once you work through this exercise, you might need to cut characters, cut entire scenes or chapters, and/or rewrite significant portions of your novel. “Premise novels typically have pages and pages of extra information in them, and none of it serves any actual story,” Hardy says. “Think of those pages as research—you created the background necessary to understand your story, and now you’ll be able to identify the best parts of it. Plus, any scenes you truly love can be salvaged to include your protagonist or antagonist. Just rework them so they fit the plot and not just the idea.” With a clearer eye on your story goals, the rewriting should go much easier.
