Photo by Karolina Kołodziejczak on Unsplash
We start with the details of your story idea.
Story ideas emerge from the raw material of our lives, including the people, places, events, and images we’ve experienced and observed, every story we’ve ever read, heard, or watched, as well as everything we have felt and thought about all of that.
This is powerful prima materia, but it’s not in story form. It is of, by, and for us. We need to metabolize it and extract the elements that enable us to craft a story that communicates what we want to express to others. That means translating what is meaningful to us into a universal form that makes it meaningful to others while staying true to what’s most important to us.
The first step in that process is to boil the raw material down to a basic premise.
The basic premise is a high-level concept of our story that serves as a foundation. It consists of
a person
in a place
with a problem
Examples
The Hobbit: Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit at the top of the social hierarchy in the Shire in Middle Earth, is sent on a life-threatening mission.
The Body in the Library: Miss Jane Marple, an amateur detective in the village of St Mary Mead in the early 20th century, must solve a murder.
Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth Bennett, a young unmarried woman without independent means in the village of Meryton in the Regency era, must marry to avoid becoming destitute.
Treasure Island: Jim Hawkins, a boy living in eighteenth century England, must survive his encounter with violent pirates.
The next step is to translate the basic premise into our story’s essence.
This post is part of a 75-day writing challenge and experiment. From September 9 through November 22, I'll be posting daily thoughts on writing, storytelling, and creativity based on recent readings or reflections. While my intention was to keep them very short—250 to 400 words—I've found that this range doesn't give me enough space to cover these topics adequately. I aim to keep them brief enough to be read quickly, but they will typically be longer than 400 words.