On writing: Developing the premise #6

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Are you happy with your concept? Then grow a premise out of it. Premises involve a task to be accomplished and a character that must accomplish it in the midst of conflict.

The following notes, gathered years ago from many books on writing, focus on developing the conflict of your story at the premise stage. If your hero wants something, some other force must stand in the way. Your characters’ true selves get revealed when tested.

-How is conflict built into the premise?
-How readily recognizable is that conflict? The more immediately apparent, the sharper your premise will be. If people could hear the premise line and think, “I can see where that’s going,” or “I can see why that’s a big problem,” then you know you have a winning premise.
-How does the hero have an external foe to banish?
-Who (not what) is actively holding back my protagonist?
-How does the conceptual context force the hero to take action against an external antagonistic force rather than simply existing as a situation within the story world?
-How does the central conflict inherent in your premise create the greatest opposition possible, with the highest consequences?
-What big thing has to happen before underlying conflict can be talked out?
-My character can change, but before that she must go through what?
-Can you make the conflict both compelling and ironic?
-What are, specifically, the villains doing? Why? Because we need to care about it, be frightened or disgusted by it. We need to know specifically what are they doing, and why the protagonist cares about it.
-How does the opposition continually do something specific to become the protagonist’s foe, his nemesis?