The Power of the Premise Line

The premise line is the tool that makes it possible to discover the natural structure of any story, and acts as a roadmap to keep the entire story development process on track.

The Story Structure-Premise Connection

You now have three of the six core foundation stones we are laying: story premise, Invisible Structure, and Visible Structure. This fourth stone is intimately related to the Invisible and Visible Structures, in that it acts as a kind of conduit allowing one to find its expression in the other.

Figure 5.1 shows the relationship between the premise line and the Invisible and Visible Structures. As I pointed out in the previous chapter, even if a writer has some knowledge of story structure, few have the natural talent needed to intuitively know how to connect the two structures in order to make their abstraction of a story idea a physical reality. Most writers will simply start writing and cross their fingers and toes, and hope against hope “the story” will show them the way. This never happens; stories don’t write themselves, and characters don’t write themselves. But what does happen is that writers find themselves lost in the story woods after weeks or months of wasted writing (recall our discussion in chapter three about backing into the story). A few lucky souls possess the natural abilities to sense the natural connections between the Invisible and Visible Structures. They sense the one-to-one correspondence of the seven components in each structure, and they are able to bring the abstraction of their big idea into solid form. They don’t know how they do it, but for them the “just do it” approach can produce productive results. For the vast majority of other writers, however, who may lack story structure skill sets, there is the premise line tool that can physically bridge the story structure correspondences.

Figure 5.1 Story Structure-Premise Line Connection

Consider how electricity comes into your home. You don’t use electricity straight from the power plant. If you did, you’d get fried right along with your toast. Direct power from the plant has to be down stepped, transformed, and converted into usable power. This is done through a series of power substations with transformers that decrease the voltage, stepping down the power so local transmission lines can distribute the electricity to your toaster without burning down the house. Figure 5.1 shows the premise line straddling both the Invisible and Visible Structures. It acts as a kind of transformer, stepping down the “power” of the big ball of information (Invisible Structure) that drops into your conscious awareness, converting that power into the usable and familiar story elements (Visible Structure) we all recognize, i.e., a love story, or horror story, or action-adventure. The Invisible Structure is too “charged” to be functional in its raw form. It needs to be down stepped either by a writer’s natural talent for story, acting as that transformer, or through the use of a physical tool that can turn that power into usable information. The premise line is that tool, and it can be one of the most powerful tools available to any writer. In order to leverage the full force available from a premise line, however, you have to understand how a premise line is constructed, because the premise line framework is the key to capturing the essence of your story’s premise—in one sentence.

Anatomy of a Premise Line

Every premise line has the same basic construction. Remember, a story premise is a container that holds the natural structure of your story. The natural structure of your story is the Invisible Structure, which is invisible due to the fact that it comes into your creative field of awareness as a big, confusing “aha moment.” The premise line is the form of that container, but more it is the tool that reveals the individual components of Invisible Structure. How? By mapping the Invisible Structure into a specific anatomy or template that lays out each piece of the Invisible Structure into a coherent grammatical clause. In English grammar, sentences are made up of clauses, and as we are constructing a sentence (or maybe two) then we want to incorporate clauses to build our sentence. The anatomy of any premise line consists of four essential clauses:

Clause #1—[Protagonist Clause] An event sparks a character to action, that…

Clause #2—[Team Goal Clause] joins that character with one or more other characters acting with deliberate purpose toward some end…

Clause #3—[Opposition Clause] when that purpose is opposed by a force of resistance bent on stopping/frustrating/opposing them…

Clause #4—[Dénouement Clause] leading to some conclusion/resolution.

Every good premise line follows this template. As with any formula, it can vary and change to some degree to accommodate personal style and temperament, but the essential clauses must always be present. For example, if you want to bake a chocolate cake you need the recipe, so you pull out the best basic recipe you can find: Betty Crocker’s chocolate cake recipe. Follow the recipe and you can churn out hundreds of cakes and they will all be flawless—one after the other. Until you start to get bored with the same old recipe (formula). So, you start to add in strawberries to the filling, and maybe a little cinnamon to the cake mix, and use whipped cream instead of butter cream for the icing. You bring some of your own personality and flare to the formula and it suddenly stops being boring and you love chocolate cake again. Regardless of your personal changes to the recipe, it still has the central ingredients that make it a great chocolate cake. Those essentials never change, and so it is with any premise line. You can make some stylistic changes and step outside the lines of the template (after you have mastered the basics), but the essential clauses must still be there for it to do its job.

Let’s walk through each of the four clauses and break down the template specifically to see how each clause acts as a map to the Invisible Structure of any story. After the general discussion, I will show you how this maps out using one popular film, Jaws (1975). As I go through the test case, use your premise idea from chapter one and begin to think about the Invisible Structure components in your own story. In part two, we will actually work through the premise creation process using more test cases, and you will also work through your premise idea using the “7-Step Premise Development Process.”

Mapping the Invisible Structure: The Four Clauses

The first clause is the protagonist clause. It consists of the first two components of the Invisible Structure (character/constriction). The objective with this clause is to combine these two concepts into a clause that begins to tell the story in a narrative form.

Clause #1: Protagonist Clause

You have a sense of a character. This is not just any character in the story; it is your main character. Who are they? If you don’t know, make it up. You’ll probably be right. But, if you really want to find your main character fast, then ask the following three questions:

• Who is in the most emotional pain?
• Who has the most to lose (physically and emotionally)?
• Who changes the most in the end?

Even if you have many characters who are in pain, who have stakes to lose, who will change over the course of the story—one character will do those things more than any other character. That is your main character.

This protagonist doesn’t exist in a vacuum; they open this first clause in some state of action, even if you don’t know what it is. They are a character and they are moving—even at this early stage of the formation of the idea—in some narrative direction. Then, something pushes them, pinches them, constricts them so that they choose to change direction and take a new narrative course. The feeling is that their options narrow, they are forced by an event to make a choice and this initiates the adventure they will go on. If this moment of constriction did not happen, then they would simply continue on their narrative way and there would be no story. So, your main character is engaged, confronted, or encounters some event that changes their action-line, and in this shift a bit of their motivation is revealed. Why does this constriction move them? Why not some other event? What is it about this pinch or crunch that speaks to this character so personally that he/she is willing to completely switch their dramatic focus?

Let’s take our test case, Joe the bank robber. Joe opens the protagonist clause happily sitting in front of the TV fantasizing about being rich. Comes the fateful knock at the door and cousin Vinnie tells him he has get-rich-quick scheme that can’t fail. Vinnie plays on his cousin’s need for money and Vinnie knows Joe wants to prove he’s not a loser living with his mother watching TV all day, but rather a player, someone to be respected. Vinnie knows he can play on Joe’s vanity and his sense of entitlement (“the world owes me, I don’t owe the world”). So, the moment of constriction relates directly to Joe’s character flaw (his moral blind spot), and that’s why Joe accepts Vinnie’s proposal, rather than rejecting it and just watching TV. The protagonist’s character flaw directly relates to the constriction that is presented—this is key in setting up what is motivating the main character under their surface behaviors, and brings that motivation (even if vaguely defined) into the narrative in direct scene-level action. Here is how the clause would look with Joe and Vinnie:

“Entitled and vain” is the part of the clause that identifies the protagonist and the protagonist’s flaw (the thing they are blind to but that sources all their bad behavior), and “approached by his gang-banger cousin” identifies the moment of constriction, i.e., the thing that changes the protagonist’s original line of action. Thus, the Invisible Structure constriction relates directly to a character flaw in the hero that will be central to the entire unfolding of the story. It is incredibly hard to make this connection between the protagonist’s flaw and the constriction. Most writers do not make this connection successfully, and the resulting stories tend to be shallow and formulaic. We’ll talk much more about this phenomena in chapter seven, “The Moral Premise,” but know that when this connection can be made, it sets up a solid structure that can generate and sustain a solid middle and payoff for the story.

The second clause is the team goal clause. This clause is meant to capture the sense of want and human desire inherent in any story, as well as the relationship that will drive the middle of the story forward.

Clause #2: Team Goal Clause

Now is the time to give a clearer idea of what the protagonist wants and who is going to work with him-her to achieve that goal. Most times this “other” is a single person: the other lover in a love story (When Harry Met Sally, Titanic, The Notebook), or the other buddy in a buddy story (Lethal Weapon, 48 Hours, Men in Black). But sometimes it can be an ensemble cast with two or more individuals filling in the role of “core relationship,” (The Big Chill, Crash, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing).

A single individual usually creates a more solid middle in a story, as there is less opportunity to get trapped in episodic writing, which results in a mushy narrative. Regardless, this is the clause where that team relationship (one-on-one, or one-to-many) is identified. As well, you make clear what the hero-heroine wants—what their desire is. This should be tangible, something they can actually get at the end of the story, i.e., the money, the girl, or the shiny new truck. As stated earlier, avoid goals of wanting world peace, or oneness with God, or inner balance. These are all fine virtues, but they make terrible desires for a piece of dramatic writing where you the writer have to show action and movement and actual completion. Think about it, how do you as a screenwriter show at the scene level that a character has achieved inner balance and peace, other than putting a goofy smile on their face? The desire needs to be human, not abstract or ethereal desire. Here is how this clause would play out with Joe:

Stories are dialogues not monologues—even in a one-person show there are many conversations going on with seen or unseen “others”—not the least of which is with the audience.

Clause #3: Opposition Clause

The third clause gives voice to the sense of resistance and pushback and introduces the adventure that will constitute the middle of the story. Resistance in the case of a screenplay means opposition. This is the clause that introduces the antagonist: the person or persons who will try to stop the hero or heroine from getting their desire fulfilled. Usually there is a central antagonist but occasionally some stories have multiple antagonists. But, if you are unsure who your main antagonist might be, ask these three questions:

• Who wants the same thing as the protagonist, but wants to beat the protagonist to the punch?
• Who knows the protagonist best and can use that intimacy to manipulate the protagonist?
• Who is a reflection of the worst kind of person the protagonist could become, unless they change?

As with the core relationship, the opponent/antagonist may be spread out among multiple characters, but there should be one that embodies these questions more than the others. Here is how the third clause plays out with Joe the bank robber:

In this clause the resistance stems from Vinnie, as he is the main antagonist who has set Joe up to be the fall guy. There are other opponents, but they are external to the core antagonistic relationship, which is personal and intimate between the cousins. The first impressions of the adventure are also introduced here with the suggestion that double-crossing is happening, along with a conspiracy to manipulate Joe to the advantage of Vinnie and the gang. This suggests lots of conflict, dramatic reveals, and emotional tension, though all those details do not have to be a part of the premise line.

Clause #4: Dénouement Clause

Here the chaos and adventure spill into the final clause, much the way all chaos spills into the process of life-change. The adventure component of the Invisible Structure crosses the third and fourth clauses due to the nature of chaos: it spreads and is messy and is often indistinguishable from the resistance it creates and the change it generates. So in this final combination we see how chaos leads to resolution, the order implicit in all chaos. In this clause we get a clearer sense of what the final stakes of the adventure might be, how messy it might get for the protagonist, and we most importantly get a sense of the change that results from this crucible the hero-heroine has been through. For Joe, this takes the following form:

The adventure ratchets up with stakes building: Joe is forced to confront Vinnie (which can’t end well), he has to come up with some clever plan to undermine his old gang rival, and he has to turn the whole situation around to his advantage, allowing for justice to be done, while opening the door to a new life—after all, he learned his moral lesson, so he deserves a second chance.

Sample Premise Line

Here’s how a first-pass premise line reads (slightly modified) written as a single sentence based on the clauses above. Yes, it’s a tad long and complicated—but that’s okay—you can always revise and condense as your refine later. The specific Invisible Structure mappings for the four clauses are bolded:

Joe, an entitled and vain thief, is approached by his cousin Vinnie to lead a bank heist to make some easy money [clause#1], with Joe only agreeing to join Vinnie after the cousin pleads that—with the help of an old gang rival—only Joe’s leadership and talents can get the money in the bank [clause#2]; when Joe discovers Vinnie has double-crossed him and is setting him up to take the fall for the heist, so that Vinnie and Joe’s old rival can take the money and run [clause#3], Joe realizes that his pride and entitlement left him wide open for this betrayal, resulting in him confronting Vinnie’s treachery, pulling a reversal on the scheming gang leader, and turning the whole situation around so that Vinnie and the gang rival take the fall, giving Joe a second chance at a new life [clause#4].

Premise Analysis

This could have been written in two or even three shorter sentences, and that is perfectly okay to do if you have a hard time writing like William Faulkner (infamous and famous for long sentence structures). But, one long sentence is a better approach because it forces you to cut out the fat and “kill your darlings.” It is tempting to throw lots of adverbs, adjectives, and backstory into the premise line process; resist this as much as possible.

Notice that the ending did not end with the kind of vagary most premise lines end with: “…and the hero learns a life-changing lesson, while surprising everyone with an astonishing reversal of fortune.” This is the kind of promotional hype most writers use at the end of pitches, because pitches are supposed to “leave’em hanging wanting more,” so people think they need to hold back and not give too much information to the reader. Do yourself a favor: just tell your story. Don’t leave anyone hanging, especially yourself. If you know how it ends, say so. The premise line is for you first and others secondarily. This tool is for your use to guide you in your writing, so put it all down, don’t hold back thinking you’re being clever.

Early passes on your premise line will always read like this one with Joe: long, a bit grammatically questionable, and dense. Subsequent passes and refinements will hone the premise line down to a tighter and more eloquent expression. And if it remains cumbersome, so what? This is for you more than anyone else; if it works for you as a guide going forward, that is all that matters. If, however, you plan on using your premise line as part of the pitch process, then editing will surely be necessary.

The critical thing to notice with the above example, however, is how the clauses are constructed. Each clause contains clear markers for story structure elements needed to tell the story. The characters identified, the setups and reversals, the emotional components, even the specific goals of each character are all reflections of story structure in action. How did they get there? How did I decide what to put where, and why? How the heck did this thing come together, rough as it may read? In part two, the “7-Step Premise Development Process,” this will all be explained in great detail using examples from popular movies and literature. You will see exactly how to build the clauses and “map” your story’s structure into this template.

Test Case: Jaws (1975)

Image 5.6 Mapping Jaws (1975) Novel by Peter Benchley, Screenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb.

Final Premise Line:

A fearful, “outsider” Police Chief [Clause#1] of a small, coastal vacation town is asked to investigate the possible shark death [Clause#1] of a local swimmer, and his worst fears are realized when a marine biologist confirms the cause of death, prompting the Chief to hire a crusty local fisherman [Clause#2] to hunt down and kill the beast [Clause#2]—forcing the fisherman to take the Chief and biologist [Clause#2] along on the hunt; only to find himself caught between the town’s greedy mayor [Clause#3] demanding a quick kill so beaches can be reopened to make money again, and the controlling, resentful fisherman [Clause#3] who thinks the Chief is a wuss, and who doesn’t need or want the Chief and biologist on his boat—leading to the three men bonding as a team as they battle the monster; where the Chief proves his value and courage, overcomes his fear of the water, and secures his place in the community when he saves the town by killing the beast [Clause#4].

Premise Analysis

Jaws is a great test case to look at because the novel and the movie have some significant differences. In the film, the story is kept pretty much to the hunt for the monster and the Chief’s personal growth, as he overcomes his fear of the unknown (as represented by the shark and water). Quint, the crusty sailor, pushes the Chief’s “man buttons” by forcing the Chief to do menial tasks and treating him like an underling, challenging the Chief to stand up and be a man; the town’s mayor and city council are just money-grubbing, small-minded folk who want to save the summer financially and get the darn beaches reopened. In the novel there was a lot more going on with subtext, subplots, and personal stakes for the Chief: his wife is bored and misses the life she used to have in the city; Hooper, the biologist, has a affair with the Chief’s wife; the town’s mayor is in bed with the mafia, which ups the stakes for him and the town should the mob lose any more money due to the crisis; and Hooper and Quint get killed by the shark, leaving the Chief to take on the monster alone. But, as you can see from the premise line, the film kept things much simpler, and if it were not for the Chief’s personal peccadilloes (fear of the water, insecure about his role in the town, unsure of his sense of belonging), Jaws would just have been another generic monster movie with a paper-thin plot.

The critical things to notice in the Jaws premise line are the pieces of the Invisible Structure, indicated by the bolded text within the clauses. Whereas with the Joe-the-bank-robber premise line, I indicated each of the whole clauses, here with Jaws I actually broke out and identified each of the Invisible Structure components corresponding to each of the clauses, so you can see how they fit into the flow of the read. This could have been written in two or three shorter sentences, and you may prefer to approach your premise line designs that way, but I wanted to demonstrate how you do this as one flowing piece of text, with all the parts in play. Always remember, you can always edit, refine, and rewrite. This is how you map the Invisible Structure to the “Anatomy of a Premise Line” template, and this is what you will be doing in part two of this book with your own story idea.

While the “Anatomy of a Premise Line” template is mechanical and specific in its design, it still affords you great latitude in how you build your clauses. The “science” of premise development lies in the construction, the “art” of premise development lies in your natural story sense, and your ability to efficiently identify each of the essential components of the Invisible Structure within the template. This takes practice, practice, practice.

A solid premise line is not something you knock out in a few minutes on your word processor. Premise development can take (and often does) a month or more to get right. It is the first step in developing a script or novel, and it is the most important step, so take the time—do the heavy lifting at the premise stage. Better there than writing a hundred or more pages only to discover you are lost in the story woods and have to back into your story. Do this right; get it solid, and then you will never get lost again. This is how your premise line acts as a lifeline in your writing process. Once you have your premise line, then you know you have the basic structure of your story identified, and then you can start writing. If you start going off on tangents, then you go back to your premise line and read it. Does where you are going with your story fit your premise line? Does it make sense structurally? If the answer is yes, then keep writing. If the answer is no, then something is off: either the premise line is wrong and you have to redo it, or you are detouring into the story woods and you need to pull back and reorient your writing to the content of the premise line.

Part two of this book is all about application, i.e., taking your idea and walking it through the exercise I just showed you. But, one of the biggest issues you face, as you undertake this process, is to determine whether or not you even have a story—or something else. The logical question here is: what else is there other than a story? For that matter, what is a story? This is not as silly a question as you might imagine. Lots of writers, especially screenwriters, think they are writing a story, when they are not—they are writing something else. In the next chapter we’re going to continue to build our foundation with three more critical stones: what is a story, what is a character, and what is a plot. They are not what you think they are, and their interrelationship is at the heart of any successful screenplay or premise line.