Premise

In practice

A premise is the basic idea a story is built on: the situation, usually a "what if," that sets everything in motion. What if a shark terrorized a beach town on the Fourth of July weekend? What if a weatherman had to live the same day over and over? A premise is smaller than a plot and more concrete than a theme. It is the seed that tells a writer, and later an audience, what kind of story this will be and where its conflict comes from.

Writers use the word in two related senses. In workshops and development meetings, the premise is the story concept: a character, a situation and the problem that follows. In Lajos Egri's 1946 book The Art of Dramatic Writing, premise means something closer to a thesis the story proves, such as "great love defies even death" for Romeo and Juliet. Both are useful; the first tells you what happens, the second what it means.

The common mistake is confusing an interesting setting with a premise. "A story about a lighthouse keeper" is a subject, not a premise, because nothing is happening yet. A premise needs pressure: a lighthouse keeper who finds a stranger washed ashore with no memory and a pistol. Once there is a situation that demands action, the story has somewhere to go.

A premise on its first page

The scene dramatizes the premise rather than explaining it: an isolated keeper, a stranger with no memory, a gun and an impossible clue. Each element is a question, and together they promise conflict. Agnes must decide whether to help, fear or report him, and the impossible ferry ticket opens a mystery. A strong premise generates scenes like this almost by itself.

What a premise is in a story

In storytelling, a premise is the foundational idea of a work: who the story is about, what situation they are in and what conflict that situation creates. Merriam-Webster's general definition, a statement or idea taken to be true and used as the basis for reasoning, explains the word's origin: a story's premise is the starting assumption the whole story reasons from.

A workable premise usually has three parts: a character, a situation and a conflict. A shy accountant (character) inherits a failing circus (situation) and must save it before the bank forecloses (conflict). The best premises contain an irony or tension, something about this character in this situation that makes trouble inevitable.

Many writers phrase a premise as a "what if" question, because a question demands an answer and suggests scenes. What if dinosaurs were brought back to life for a theme park? What if a toy didn't know it was a toy? What if a family's basement held a secret family? Each one is a story waiting to be told.

Examples of premises

Jaws: a police chief who is afraid of the water must stop a shark that is killing swimmers in his beach town. Groundhog Day: an arrogant weatherman is forced to relive the same day until he changes. Toy Story: a toy who is his owner's favorite is threatened by a flashy new toy. In each, the character is chosen to make the situation as difficult as possible.

Some premises come from a single impossible change to the world. Big asks what would happen if a twelve-year-old woke up in an adult's body. Liar Liar takes away a lawyer's ability to lie. Get Out sends a young Black man to meet his white girlfriend's family, and lets the horror grow from the social situation itself.

Literary premises work the same way. Pride and Prejudice: a sharp-witted young woman and a proud wealthy man misjudge each other and must overcome their first impressions. The Metamorphosis: a traveling salesman wakes up transformed into a giant insect and his family must deal with it. Reduced to one sentence, each still promises a whole book.

Premise, logline, theme and plot

The premise is the idea; the logline is the sentence that sells it. A logline compresses the premise into one or two lines for a pitch or a query, with the protagonist, the goal, the obstacle and the stakes named in a way that makes someone want to read. The same premise can have many loglines, and a good logline usually reveals a good premise.

The plot is what actually happens: the sequence of events from beginning to end. The premise is the starting point the plot grows from. Two writers could take the same premise, a woman discovers her husband has a second family, and write completely different plots, a thriller, a comedy or a tragedy.

The theme is what the story is about underneath, the idea about life it explores, such as forgiveness, ambition or the cost of lying. Egri's sense of premise sits closest to theme, because he meant a statement the story proves. In today's development language, premise usually means the concept, and theme is the deeper question that concept lets the story ask.

How to write a strong premise

Start with a character and put them in the situation that tests them hardest. A premise grows stronger when the character's weakness meets the situation's demand: the agoraphobe who must cross a country, the pacifist forced to fight, the liar who cannot lie. If any character would face your situation in the same way, look for one who would struggle more.

Look for the conflict and the question. A strong premise makes the reader immediately ask "and then what?" If the premise does not suggest at least a handful of scenes, problems and turning points, it is probably still a setting or a subject. Write it as a "what if," then as a sentence with a character, a goal and an obstacle.

Test it on other people. Tell the premise in one sentence to a friend and watch their reaction: interest, questions and suggestions are good signs; polite nods are not. A premise that excites people in one sentence will be easier to pitch, easier to outline and easier to keep alive through the long middle of a draft.