Craft Book of the Month: June 2011--How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II

Premise

James N. Frey claims that "there's no more powerful concept in fiction writing than that of premise. If you structure your stories with a strong premise in mind, your novel will be well focused and dramatically powerful, and it will hold your readers from beginning to end."

So what is "premise"? Frey defines it as "a statement of what happens to the characters as a result of the core conflict of the story."

The first step in finding the premise, Frey claims, is asking "what is this story about?

"Once you know what the story is about, you will be able to say, "Here is my truth: Human nature is such that, given a particular set of characters tested by a particular set of conflicts, the course of events will change human beings in this particular way."

To demonstrate what he means, Frey shows the process in action:

"Okay, say it's a story of love. The only love worth writing about is some kind of powerful love, whether it's filial, brotherly, romantic, lustful, obsessive, whatever. The answer to the question of what the story is about will give you the first part of your premise. What happens to the character, as a result, will give you the rest of it. In a story of obsessive love, say, the love becomes overbearing to the protagonist's lover and the protagonist loses her in the end and kills himself. Obsessive love leads to suicide is the premise of the story."

It's a meaty couple of chapters, and for me to do it justice I'd have to copy it out verbatim. Frey shows you how to step-by-step "prove" your premise, and the hard questions to ask ("are there ironies and surprises? Do characters grow and develop?") to see if the premise works and thus whether the story is worth writing.

Please get your hands on this book to see Frey's "premise-making" in action. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.


And now, totally off topic.... Do you remember me writing last month about the competition to find TV's greatest Dad? Well they're down to the last two, one of whom is a dark horse. If you want to vote for the winner, you can find all the shenanigans at The World’s Greatest TV Dad.

Who's the Best Dad?

The good folks at Dad Central Consulting have invited me once again to be part of a blog tour. And I love it.

Because, in honor of Father’s Day, the equally good folks at Man of the House (“if you are looking for advice on how to make an easy dinner that will leave your kids happy and your wife feeling safe to let you in the kitchen, we're here. We're here for the man who wears a dozen hats and worries about losing his hair…”) are running a hoot of a contest, voting on who is The World’s Greatest TV Dad. Hop on over and you can choose between such luminaries as Homer Simpson and Cliff Huxtable, or Ray Barone and Charles Ingalls.

I can’t say I have consciously been inspired by any TV Dad. In fact, as a person who watches hardly any TV, I was hard pressed to even recognize some of the modern patriarchs. My TV heyday was in the 70s, so I’m much more familiar with a Mike Brady, Howard Cunnigham, or Tom Bradford than an Eric Taylor, Phil Dunphy, or Mitchell Pritchett. But heck, I’m sure some of my readers are cool and hip and very Modern Family.

My own dad was a successful diplomat, who married and had children comparatively late in life. So he wasn’t outside tossing rugby or cricket balls like some of the younger dads of my contemporaries. What he lacked in physical energy (and I can sympathize with him now, as I head toward the big 5-0 with a 4 year-old in tow), he made up for in emotional and intellectual energy. He never shied from telling us he loved us, and he loved a good conversation, even if it later turned into an argument.