Is Your Premise Strong Enough? Are you sure?

This will help you answer this critical question. But first, it’s helpful — to your story, and your learning curve, and thus, your career trajectory — to understand why this question is critical. Simple fact: a significant reason stories get rejected, or don’t find a self-published readership, is that the story, at its core, doesn’t […]

When Your Premise Paints You Into a Corner — Part 19 of the GSDWT series.

Sadly, you have no one to blame but yourself. Happily, there is wisdom that can keep you away from that edge. Let’s go back to process for a moment. There is really only one goal for your story development/writing process, even though some claim that “I’m just here for a good time” and they really […]

The Four Pillars of Premise

In this increasingly strange and troubled world, one might want to salve their soul with a road trip to see the artifacts of a more thoughtful and optimistic time. Such a therapeutic adventure may not be too far away: Writer and curator Sam Lubell along with photographer Darren Bradley released their latest architectural travel guide, Mid-Century […]

A Free 3-Minute Video Workshop… On Turning Your Story “Idea” into a Viable Story “Premise

I just found this on Youtube. Didn’t know it was there. It was shot by my friend Mindy Halleck at the 2013 Willamette Writers Conference.  (Check out her award-winning novel, Return to Sender, here.) I offer it today for three reasons. First… this is Storyfix, the entire mission here being to deliver tools and wisdom […]

When Theme Smothers Premise — A Case Study

Today’s title pretty much sums what I want you to notice–and learn from–in this case study, taken from my Concept/Premise Level Analysis service. I’d lecture here about the risk of too much thematic emphasis, but that’s already in my feedback, for your enlightenment. Read it here: July 16 case study Anxious to see what you think. […]

A Case Study in Near-Perfect Concept-Premise Integration

Plus, some Storyfix.com updates on coaching and a few new ebooks.   Submitting your work for evaluation and coaching can feel like a daunting experience.  Sometimes things don’t work as well as you thought, or hoped, and the feedback feels more like backpeddling than the forward-energizing catalyst that it really is. And then there are […]

Case Study: When Your Premise is as Vague as a Campaign Promise

When you think about it, the story concepts and premises we pitch – and just as often, the story concepts and premises we write from – are nothing other than promises. We pitch a story concept and an ensuing premise to an agent with hope that they’ll want to read more.  By implication, by virtue […]

How to Create a Story Premise that Works

A case study illustrating a premise that tried, but comes up short. With an extensive tutorial on why, and how to avoid this trap.   When asked how one moves from knowledge to execution… more accurately, the ability to apply storytelling principles to the writing of a draft… I always say this: look for and […]

Concept/Premise Link to Tutorial

Click below to read the tutorial on Concept and Premise, in support of the Full Story Plan Evaluation process: LINKED version of CONCEPT PREMISE Please follow and like us:

Surrey Sunday Concept/Premise

Here are the slides from Sunday’s workshop on The Intersection of Concept and Premise. Click here: Surrey – Sunday Concept vs Premise I hope you received value and inspiration from this presentation.  I invite you to look around this site, there are over 600 posts on craft, including about a dozen story deconstructions, and a […]