Finding a Way Into Story
If you find yourself stuck midway through a first draft, there’s a good chance you need to return to the premise of your story. Frequently, we have ideas that make for an interesting start to a story, but in actuality yield few scenes, leaving us feeling frustrated and feeling stuck. No, this isn’t a sign that your ideas are rubbish or that it’s pointless to continue – but it is an indication that you need to dig into the core of what your story is about, and find a way into the deepest level of that story.
There are four important elements that make up a solid story premise: protagonist, wants, obstacles, and time. In the simplest terms, we have a character who wants something, but faces obstacles in their pursuit of said something over a period of time. Often, when we come up with an idea for a story and start developing a premise one or two of these elements will lead. It’s important, however, to ensure we devote equal attention to all four so that we don’t run into that dreaded “wall” when drafting.
Let’s consider the following idea.
A number of people who have died at different points in the last century come back to life in a small rural town.
Interesting idea, right? Now we need to find a way into this idea. We identify a protagonist.
A policeman called out to reports of a disturbance in a graveyard finds that a number of people who have died at different points in the last century have come back to life in a small rural town in Australia.
A want becomes immediately apparent:
A policeman called out to reports of a disturbance in a graveyard in a small rural town finds that a number of people who have died at different points in the last century have come back to life, and tries to figure out what is going on.
At this point, we might feel excited about writing this story, and we might eagerly launch into writing it. But we have neglected two important elements of our premise, and thus it’s likely that after we write the atmospheric scenes in which the baffled police officer discovers confused, soil-covered individuals wandering about the graveyard, we’ll be scratching our heads as to what exactly comes next. Where does our character go from here to “figure out what is going on?” It’s too broad, too vague.
Let’s consider, then, the OBSTACLES that our protagonist will face. Obstacles, remember, can include internal factors, like a character’s misbeliefs. What, then, could prevent the police officer from getting to the bottom of what has happened? Firstly, perhaps, his own incredulity at what is happening. He might round up some of the individuals and take them to a medical doctor he knows in the belief she will be able to provide a rational explanation for what is going on. What else? Perhaps one or more of the individuals has already escaped the graveyard and the police officer needs to track them down. Let’s make the recently-dead all quite different from each other, too, so that attempts to identify a common cause for their reappearance fails. Perhaps, too, they don’t want to co-operate with the police officer’s attempts to understand what has happened, and instead want to return to the places and families they remember. Let’s throw in another obstacle: it transpires that none of the recently-dead can cross an invisible boundary encircling the town. If they attempt to cross, they die – for real. Now the police officer has to rely on only the people and resources within this small town to figure out the mystery.
It’s getting better. But we are missing an element of TIME, or stakes. What lends the story a sense of urgency? Let’s add in a ticking clock, of sorts. Perhaps there’s someone coming for the recently-returned, who intends to kill them for reasons we don’t yet know. Now the police officer must scramble to hide the returned and track down those who strayed from the graveyard in order to protect them and find out what on earth is going on before it’s too late.
Now, you might be thinking that at this point, we’ve got all four bases of our premise covered, and we’ve got plenty of ideas for scenes. And you’d be partly correct! But if we look, there’s still more to tighten.
Let’s go back to our protagonist, and what he wants. He’s a police officer, confounded by what he is experiencing, and he wants to figure it out. Can you feel that this is still a little too broad, a little woolly? After all: why does it matter so much to him? What has he got at stake, personally? What is it about him that makes him the protagonist that must drive the story, over another character?
What if the police officer was himself fairly recently bereaved? And what if one of the risen dead was his deceased wife? Now he has a more personal connection, a more complex backstory. But wait: wouldn’t he simply be overjoyed to be reunited with his wife? Where’s the tension, the stakes? Hmm. What about if we had his returned wife discover that not only is her husband now remarried and expecting a baby with his new wife, but that this new wife is her former best friend, who supported her through terminal illness? Now our protagonist is torn: he wants to find out what has happened because it is now an inescapable part of his life; he must battle with his feelings for his returned wife whilst preparing to become a father; he must debate what exactly he tells his new wife. Straight away the character of his returned wife is also springing to life. How will she learn of the new reality? How will she react? Will she try to get her husband back? We can see this adds a heap of new obstacles to our story, too, as well as the stakes: now our protagonist has a motive to keep his discovery quiet until he can work out what to do about his wife problem, before his baby is born, whilst also trying to protect the group from harm.
You might recognise the plot of this story example: it’s the premise for the Australian drama series, Glitch, the first season of which is just a masterclass in developing out each element of a premise to fully capitalize on its potential.
Take time with your story ideas: don’t be afraid to play around with the premise, considering each of the four elements and developing them by asking “what if?”. It is better to spend more time working with a premise early on, pulling it apart and reworking it, than to get ten or twenty or fifty thousand words into a draft and find yourself drawing a blank.
What are your thoughts on premise? I’d love to know! Share your comments below, and do send this onto a fellow writer who’d find it helpful.
Happy Writing!
