Novel Idea Workshop: Lesson 2
What if you could write a novel without fail? What if you could be 100% confident that you would be able to take your idea and turn it into a finished novel no matter what? The zombie apocalypse could strike, and you would still finish your novel.
In this series you’ll learn how to take your idea and turn it into a solid plan that will help you finish your novel.
The magic of a premise is that when you can get your book idea down to a single sentence you can do amazing things with it:
You have a ready-made pitch for your novel that you can use for agents, publishers, or to prove to your friends and family that you’re serious!
When you get lost during the writing process, you have a guide to get yourself back on track.
And you actually have the first and most important part of a book proposal.
Best of all, just through that single sentence, you can take your okay idea and help turn it into a bestselling idea.
I have spent months working on this ONE sentence, writing and rewriting it to make it work. On one book, I wrote hundreds of different versions of the premise before I finally settled on the one premise that worked. Not long after that, my book was picked up by a literary agent.
If your premise isn’t working, then you know your book isn’t working, and so you can often spot problems in your book with this simple sentence.
In the last lesson we talked about the goal, and in this lesson we’re going to talk about your protagonist.
In a 1-sentence premise, the protagonist is described in 2 words, one adjective and one noun, and the adjective should give us a brief insight into their character. For example, a naive teen or a jaded detective or a lonely orphan or a talented basketball player. Try to be as specific as possible. You only have 2 words so make them count.
Alright let’s take a look at two different example premises, starting with this great one from Tina Weaver:
First Nation girl finds an object with supernatural components when she inherits a family estate. When obtaining the object becomes life threatening she has to decide who to trust.
First, this story sounds fascinating. Great idea! We’re going to focus on the protagonist, but I do think you could easily combine this into a single sentence. Some agent’s proposal formats actually require a single sentence description, so that’s something to be really disciplines about. Remember your premise doesn’t have to contain everything in your story. Just the 3 most essential bits.
Alright, Tina’s protagonist is described a “first nation girl.” In this situation, even though we already have 3 words, I would have one more adjective to give us just a bit of an insight into her personality. A culture-of-origin isn’t the same as a personality, so what one adjective could you use to describe who she is? Maybe “strong-willed” or “absent-minded” or “stubborn”? In your premise, we don’t need to know your character’s full life story, but we do want one simple adjective to describe her. And be just a little more specific on “girl,” which is pretty generic. I just might do, “A stubborn teenager.”
I really like the “first nation” in her descriptor, so if you wanted to include that bit of context, use it in the situation part of the premise as a setting, for example, “A stubborn child finds an object with supernatural components when she inherits a family estate on a first nation reserve.” Not sure if I got the wording perfectly on that, but hopefully that shows you how to create a 2-word description of your protagonist.
Anyway, great work Tina! One question that I hear from writers a lot, is what if I have two or more point of view characters or what if I have more than one protagonists. For example, here’s a premise from Julie Meier:
Love this. Great work, Julie. Here Julie’s done a perfect job of describing two characters in this in two words. You’ve got a time-hardened firefighter and a fragile young woman. But there are 2 not one! So here’s the deal: unless you’re writing a saga, meaning a mutli-pov story spanning multiple books, you should only have one protagonist. And EVEN IF YOU ARE writing one of those you probably STILL have one protagonist. I think of Game of Thrones and George RR Martins song of Ice and Fire, in situations like this, which follows many different characters, many of which we become very attached to, which makes it VERY difficult to write a premise. So in that situation, you can do one of two things. The world can become the protagonist (so Westeros for Martin), or you can choose the character you think the story really revolves around the most. For example, in Game of Thrones, I would argue the story revolves around Jon Snow, so I could focus on his plotline in the premise.
Now, for a love story like this Julie’s seems to be, I would definitely choose the main character you want to follow. And to help you choose ask the question, “Who’s fate drives this story?” In Pride and Prejudice, it’s Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s story, but it’s really Elizabeth’s fate that drives the story. Same with this: one of these characters will emerge as the protagonist. And then, for the other one, just put them into the situation. So you might say,
When a fragile young woman encounters a stoic firefighter in a dream, she enlists his help to fight her inner demons and free her from the insecurities holding back… something… that points to a personal goal or desire… maybe career?
Or something like that. One reason you have to pick one is that you have to figure out what their goal is. And I think that’s something that’s missing in this premise. Love the idea though! Great work Julie!
So that’s how to develop your protagonist in your premise. In our third lesson, we’re going to talk about the meat of your premise, the situation, which is both the easiest and hardest part to get RIGHT. So stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, happy writing!
You have a ready-made pitch for your novel that you can use for agents, publishers, or to prove to your friends and family that you’re serious!
When you get lost during the writing process, you have a guide to get yourself back on track.
And you actually have the first and most important part of a book proposal.
Best of all, just through that single sentence, you can take your okay idea and help turn it into a bestselling idea.
I have spent months working on this ONE sentence, writing and rewriting it to make it work. On one book, I wrote hundreds of different versions of the premise before I finally settled on the one premise that worked. Not long after that, my book was picked up by a literary agent.
If your premise isn’t working, then you know your book isn’t working, and so you can often spot problems in your book with this simple sentence.
In the last lesson we talked about the goal, and in this lesson we’re going to talk about your protagonist.
In a 1-sentence premise, the protagonist is described in 2 words, one adjective and one noun, and the adjective should give us a brief insight into their character. For example, a naive teen or a jaded detective or a lonely orphan or a talented basketball player. Try to be as specific as possible. You only have 2 words so make them count.
Alright let’s take a look at two different example premises, starting with this great one from Tina Weaver:
First Nation girl finds an object with supernatural components when she inherits a family estate. When obtaining the object becomes life threatening she has to decide who to trust.
First, this story sounds fascinating. Great idea! We’re going to focus on the protagonist, but I do think you could easily combine this into a single sentence. Some agent’s proposal formats actually require a single sentence description, so that’s something to be really disciplines about. Remember your premise doesn’t have to contain everything in your story. Just the 3 most essential bits.
Alright, Tina’s protagonist is described a “first nation girl.” In this situation, even though we already have 3 words, I would have one more adjective to give us just a bit of an insight into her personality. A culture-of-origin isn’t the same as a personality, so what one adjective could you use to describe who she is? Maybe “strong-willed” or “absent-minded” or “stubborn”? In your premise, we don’t need to know your character’s full life story, but we do want one simple adjective to describe her. And be just a little more specific on “girl,” which is pretty generic. I just might do, “A stubborn teenager.”
I really like the “first nation” in her descriptor, so if you wanted to include that bit of context, use it in the situation part of the premise as a setting, for example, “A stubborn child finds an object with supernatural components when she inherits a family estate on a first nation reserve.” Not sure if I got the wording perfectly on that, but hopefully that shows you how to create a 2-word description of your protagonist.
Anyway, great work Tina! One question that I hear from writers a lot, is what if I have two or more point of view characters or what if I have more than one protagonists. For example, here’s a premise from Julie Meier:
Love this. Great work, Julie. Here Julie’s done a perfect job of describing two characters in this in two words. You’ve got a time-hardened firefighter and a fragile young woman. But there are 2 not one! So here’s the deal: unless you’re writing a saga, meaning a mutli-pov story spanning multiple books, you should only have one protagonist. And EVEN IF YOU ARE writing one of those you probably STILL have one protagonist. I think of Game of Thrones and George RR Martins song of Ice and Fire, in situations like this, which follows many different characters, many of which we become very attached to, which makes it VERY difficult to write a premise. So in that situation, you can do one of two things. The world can become the protagonist (so Westeros for Martin), or you can choose the character you think the story really revolves around the most. For example, in Game of Thrones, I would argue the story revolves around Jon Snow, so I could focus on his plotline in the premise.
Now, for a love story like this Julie’s seems to be, I would definitely choose the main character you want to follow. And to help you choose ask the question, “Who’s fate drives this story?” In Pride and Prejudice, it’s Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s story, but it’s really Elizabeth’s fate that drives the story. Same with this: one of these characters will emerge as the protagonist. And then, for the other one, just put them into the situation. So you might say,
When a fragile young woman encounters a stoic firefighter in a dream, she enlists his help to fight her inner demons and free her from the insecurities holding back… something… that points to a personal goal or desire… maybe career?
Or something like that. One reason you have to pick one is that you have to figure out what their goal is. And I think that’s something that’s missing in this premise. Love the idea though! Great work Julie!
So that’s how to develop your protagonist in your premise. In our third lesson, we’re going to talk about the meat of your premise, the situation, which is both the easiest and hardest part to get RIGHT. So stay tuned for that. And in the meantime, happy writing!