On Storycraft: Part 1 - Premise to Concept

I'm of the opinion that in addition to continually writing stories, I ought to also be in a constant state of improvement when it comes to writing. Both in the storytelling department as well as the technical one. It's my belief that whatever you wrote last should be your best piece to date. Given that I spend most of the time when I'm not writing or marketing learning more about how to write well, I thought I'd start a series of blog posts that kind of follow along with what I'm focused on learning at the moment. Your welcome.

But who the fuck am I to tell you how to write? Nobody, that's who. I'll tell you this, though: I write full-time, and I'm making a living doing it off of, at the time this was written, ten titles. They all sell well. I do a good amount of marketing for them, but I don't have any bad reviews yet. I'm entirely self-educated, I don't have a degree and didn't finish high school. I've got mountains of life experience so I imagine that helps a little. I read voraciously, both fiction and books on writing technique. End credentials. 

Recently I was asked to review a young person's first draft of a story. Doing it made me realize just how much advice I wish I could go back and give myself at that age. It's an incredible world we live in now where if you want to write a story and publish it you can! And it costs you nothing but time. However, it can also cost you reputation if you rush the process and get to that first story without a little care and timing. I spend about as much time worrying whether a story is any good as I do actually writing it. 

Writing is hard work! If you haven't heard that yet, you haven't been reading enough about writing. There are links at the bottom of this post to some really excellent books. Think of them as a trilogy that should be read in order. They taught me tons, they'll teach you a lot as well. 

So where to begin? Well, before you write a story you need a premise, then a concept. So that's what this post will focus on. I'm going to kind of walk through a series of topics more or less from beginning to end in terms of writing a book.  Ah the concept. If there was a genie in the bottle of your story, this is it. Before you write something you've got to have a good handle on this. What's your story about? If this isn't clear to begin with, then it doesn't matter how well you write the rest of your story.

So, how do you go about coming up with an awesome concept? Well, you start with a premise and work your way up. 

Coming up with a good premise isn't tough--this is the easy part. Generating a good concept out of it is a little harder, but if you go a step at a time it can be really painless. The trick is in repetition and refinement. 

So what makes a good premise? Just about anything. What makes a good concept is the harder part. A good concept gives us an interesting character in a compelling situation with high stakes. By the time you've got your concept written, you want to see something like this: "Character encounters situation and must accomplish goal or else consequences." That's as generic a concept line as you can get. It seems a little formulaic for a reason, but don't underestimate the versatility of this formula in creating a foundation for a story, as well as giving you an very catchy one-liner to actually entice people to read the book.

For example, how about a story about a genie that grants wishes in a most unsatisfying way? We can take this idea in a lot of different directions. It's pretty classic and there are tropes we can both draw on as well as surprise people with because most everyone has got some idea of this kind of story in mind--we've read about it dozens of times. That's okay, though! Tropes are something that serve us in two ways: we know what people expect, and we therefore know what they don't expect. That's food for surprising readers. 

A man discovers a bottle containing a genie that grants three wishes, but always in a way that the man didn't expect. (basic, a starter premise. These are normally pretty generic, that's okay. Generic is easy, next is refinement. How many different ways can we tweak this premise?)A professional assassin discovers a mysterious bottle in the home of a target, it turns out to house a genie offering three wishes, but the outcome is always deadly dangerous to the holder of the bottle. (Oh, now we're getting somewhere. Already we've got a few questions and lots of plot food--maybe the target made a wish that ultimately resulted in this assassin's assignment, for instance.)A death-row inmate is offered a chance at a pardon, if he'll assassinate a certain politician--in the process he acquires a magic lamp holding a genie who offers three wishes, but each one seems to make everything worse. (we're getting closer to 'concept' and further away from 'premise'. That's natural, and ideal. After, we'll polish it into a more complete concept.)A man who is on death-row for a murder he didn't commit is offered a chance at freedom if he'll assassinate a well-known politician with a history of doing good things for the country, and discovers along the way a magic lamp containing a genie who twists each wish in the worst possible way in an attempt to kill its master. Arthur Collins didn't kill his children, but he's on death-row for their murder. When he's offered the chance at a new life, he sees the opportunity to seek vengeance and vindication for his children's death. All he has to do is kill Senator Paul Trask, a man lobbying for peace between the US and the middle east. However, when Arthur discovers a mysterious brass lamp in the Senator's home and learns of the powerful genie inside of it, he begins making wishes that not only threaten to cost him his own life, but the lives of millions of others. We could probably have kept going, but you'd get bored and skip over most of them. Suffice it to say, you keep tweaking and cutting and adding and changing until you have something that makes you get all tingly. You need to be excited about the story at this stage, and when you come to the idea that's right, you'll know it. Now, don't marry this idea just yet! Expect it to take some adjustment over time. Never become so attached to something that you overlook better ideas in the process of outlining and writing. Give yourself literary wiggle room, and lots of good 'soil'. The concept we ended up with above after five rounds is one that gives us lots of good questions. Who wants the senator dead? Who killed Arther's children if not him? The genie is a middle eastern myth--does this have something to do with the assassination, or with the peace talks between the US and the middle east? How did Senator Paul Trask come by the object, and has he used it? What were the consequences of those wishes if he did? 

Suddenly we've got not just a concept, but a great seed for story material. That'll be the beginning of the story bible, which I'll talk about in the next post. 

Coming up with a concept this way takes a lot of pressure off of you. When you sit down to write a story, the first thing you'll have to ask is "What's this story about?" There's a strong urge to immediately come up with some high-concept, genre defining story that'll be a best seller for sure and make you tons of money and fame. That's too much pressure. Instead, start with a simple premise and refine it, rewrite it, re-imagine it until you come to the "Ah-ha" moment. If you don't read your concept and go, "Oh, that's the one! Oh my god, how cool! Oh, but what if..." Then wring your hands like a super-villain, giggle like a crazy person and smile while you start filling out the fringes. 

The next posts in this series are going to be in this order: Building the Story Bible, Choosing Structure, Major Plot Points, Scene Planning, Editing, and Publishing. The last bit is going to have some to do with different chosen story structures, benefits of going wide versus Kindle Unlimited, and some other take-with-a-grain-of-salt advice regarding how to market a book. I'll talk a bit about book covers there as well as this is something I am also constantly refining for myself. 

A few questions and answers for this particular process.
Should you choose your genre ahead of time? Yes and no. If you already know you want to write in a particular genre, then by all means come up with an initial premise germane to that genre. However, just about any premise can be twisted into any genre. The concept above is already fantasy, but with a bit of a tweak it can be period, urban, historical adaptation or 'alt-history'; or we can take it somewhere weird and make it pretty unusual sci-fi. The genie could be an alien being of some sort. We can make it an erotic romance even, and make the genie a deadly love interest for the MC, maybe the genie doesn't have a choice in how the wishes are granted and wants to be free. Any concept fits in any genre, in my opinion. What are tropes and what do you do with them? Think about nearly any Paranormal Romance story you've read. Or, the vast majority of spy novels if that's your thing. Horror, fantasy, science fiction--all of them have some classic components that are expected. How is it that there can be so many stories out there telling the same story but all still become so interesting? Do you think Harry Potter was the first story about a kid going to a wizard school? Of course not. Tropes are almost like story archetypes. You can use them in two ways: as a means to let the reader know what they're in for and understand readers expectations, and more effectively to plan how to surprise readers. Being familiar with classic tropes in your genre of choice is important both so you don't come off as entirely cliche, and so you can generate compelling and interesting twists in your story.When is the concept right? We did already go over this, but what differentiates a weak concept from a strong one? How do you know you're excited about the right concept? When is it 'done'. Well the short answer is that you don't. Writing a story is a gamble, always. However, there is a difference between compelling and complex. You can be compelling without being complex, but a story that is complex without being compelling isn't very fun to read. A story with neither borders on a children's book and even then it's just easier to be compelling to kids. You want a concept that implies high stakes, gives you plenty of food for good backstory and subplots, and you want to identify a concept that puts you in a position of being able to open your story with a good hook. Your concept, when you read it, should be of the quality that if you saw it on the back cover of a book you'd open it up and read a few pages to check it out. You'll refine this initial concept over time and it will eventually become the 'one-liner' for your book--the first bit of marketing that will sell your book. Ask yourself: Does this concept promise something interesting? Does it promise adventure, or romance, or to scare the shit out of me? When you read it, do you immediately feel intrigued? You have to be honest with yourself here, and it can be helpful to have someone who reads fiction like what you want to write that you can show the concept to and simply ask, "Would you check out a book if this was the tag-line?"  

Exercise Time!

Come up with a simple premise, and re-write it like we did above until you come up with something that gives you that tingle I talked about. Don't stop until you get that, and don't get discouraged! If you go off the rails a bit, go back to an earlier version and start a new branch. For instance in the above example, if I wasn't pleased with the outcome concept, I might go back to the third version and make a new branch--instead of a death-row inmate, the assassin is a former priest--and go from there. If you like, post your final concept below and I'll give you my thoughts. Keep it in a file somewhere to start working on the story bible in the next exercise.

Books you should read!
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003JBI2YI 
Story Trumps Structure http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00JX12L7MRock your Plot http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008CC5L8Y