A novel is generally said to have three constituents: plot, characterization, and setting. Plot is the author’s contrivance of storyline, its narrative structure. Characterization is the act of establishing identity, creating the ‘people’ populating the novel. Setting is the location wherein the novel takes place and includes landscape as well as atmosphere, and mood or tone. The internal landscape of a character is also tremendously important as a “setting”. But the essence of a novel goes beyond these constituents. A novel is an organic whole, a living being, so to speak. Everything in it contributes to its life. What doesn’t contribute to that life, doesn’t belong and should be removed. As Aristotle stated 2400 years ago:

[The story] must represent one action, a complete whole, with its several incidents so closely connected that the transposal or withdrawal of any one of them will disjoin and dislocate the whole. For that which makes no perceptible difference by its presence or absence is no real part of the whole.

That pretty well isolates the story from everything not part of it. And you can keep most of the extraneous material from ever getting into your novel by knowing your entire storyline, doing all the plotting, before you start writing.

To expand a little, plot is the author’s ordered contrivance of storyline in the interest of furthering the reader’s emotional and intellectual experience. Plotting is a lengthy process, much of which will occur while writing the novel, but the bulk should be done up front before you put any of the actual words on paper. Avoid the temptation to start writing when you first get an idea. Holding off until you thoroughly know your entire storyline allows you to be on top of the story instead of totally within it. This gives the author perspective and the confidence to write with authority. Delaying the writing also minimizes mistakes, ensures the author knows what to put in and leave out, but more importantly, it stores the creative energy, so it can explode on the page. Plotting allows you to develop story strategy as opposed to simply supplying a sequence of events littered with facts.

So how do you get a handle on this plotting process? The answer is that every story has a kernel from which everything else builds.

THE CRAFT OF STORYTELLING

The first thing you must establish is the core of the story around which everything will evolve. This central core is known in the industry as the Premise.

Definition: Premise, a proposition to be proved; a basis of argument.

Premise is the Rosette Stone for decoding the entire idea and getting it into the form of a novel. A Premise forms the core of every meaningful story. In the same spirit as the proverbial grain of sand that contains the history of the universe, so the Premise contains the motivating force behind everything in the novel and is the author’s guiding light for what to put in and leave out.

Since the Premise is the “seed” from which your novel will grow, it contains the genetic material for the entire tree. Only then will it have a strong trunk (storyline), develop branches (subplots), flower (generate ideas), and in the end bear fruit (prove its point).

Henry James explained the effect of having a good Premise this way:

One’s luck was to have felt one’s subject right—whether [by] instinct or calculation…; and the circumstance even amounts perhaps to a little lesson that when this has happily occurred faults may show, faults may disfigure, and yet not upset the work. It remains in equilibrium by having found its centre, the point of command of all the rest. From this centre the subject has been treated, from this centre the interest has spread, and so, whatever else it may do or may not do, the thing has acknowledged a principle of composition and contrives to at least hang together.

Henry James, The Art of the novel

James’ statement emphasizes the point that every story should be more than just a sequence of events. It must have the intellectual core that holds it together, a core that provides meaning. We'll discuss "meaning" in more detail later, but keep in mind that every novel has a point to make. Any event that sticks in your mind does so for a reason, and that reason is that it means something to you. What, you may not quite be able to verbalize, but it does. 

Henry James aside, all this has undoubtedly started to degenerate into obscurities that you can't quite see how to put into practice, so let’s set this rather philosophical discussion aside and make it really simple. The Premise in its essence is conflict. And conflict can be expressed in three words:

X versus Y

Example:

Good overcomes Evil

Again, first and foremost the Premise is about conflict. That's what sets the forces in motion (starts the novel) and leads to resolution (ends the novel). You must have a Premise to have a novel at all. Until you have one, you’re just whistling in the wind. Hidden within the Premise are both main characters and the central conflict.  This may sound startling, but it's the nature of conflict. Conflict occurs because of opposing wills. These "wills" may be two individuals, two families (as in a family feud), countries (was in war), etc. The possibilities are endless.

The reason I say that you should first have an idea for a novel is that it’s practically impossible to start with a Premise because they are by their nature ambiguous. If you have an idea for a novel first, then you can use the principal behind the Premise to uncover the hidden elements in your story and fully develop it into a well-rounded storyline.

If the Premise is viewed as a key, then the idea is the locked door that must be opened to expose all the elements of the story. Using this key, the first word of the Premise gives us the protagonist, the third the antagonist. The second word contains the conflict and its result. These three elements are immediately revealed through examination of the Premise. Since the novel is about conflict, the conflict must be "locked" early in the story, thus setting the characters in motion. Some movie makers are so urgent to lock the conflict that they do so before the titles roll.

AN EXAMPLE

As an example, let’s say you want to write a novel about a young woman who loves children. As far as this idea goes, it isn’t a story because it has no conflict. It has a character, possibly the protagonist, but no story. However, if you further state that the woman can’t have children because she is sterile, then we at least have conflict. The woman’s emotional needs are in conflict with her biological state, and we have the beginning of a story although we don’t yet have a full Premise because we don’t know the nature of her biological problem and how she overcomes or succumbs to her physical limitations. If you say that she is sterile because her husband forced her to have surgery, we have uncovered more of the Premise because we know the antagonist, the husband, but we still don’t have the outcome. If you say that she divorces her husband, has her surgery reversed and has a child by artificial insemination, then we have a full story.

I’ll not go into the multitude of possible Premises inherent in his simple story, but I will provide a couple of attempts at defining it. A very simple Premise might be “wife overcomes husband”, although this is character oriented in the extreme. “Good overcomes evil” is another possible Premise, and this time it is rather cosmic in its scope. A further possibility is “determination overcomes control”, although this doesn’t really nail it either. The main thing you should get from this discussion is how to work with a Premise to develop your idea. At this point you might want to consider other novels, movies or plays you admire and see if you can uncover a possible premise for each. Remember that the Premise is a working tool for the craftsman. It insures that a full-bodied story is the result of your efforts.

With this example behind us, let’s look at some possibilities for a Premise. Keep in mind that conflict creates a tension that gives the story an inevitable sense of forward motion and puts on the brakes when it is resolved at the end. Here are some examples of a three-word Premise:

1.                  Intelligence overcomes stupidity.

2.                  Anarchy overcomes order.

3.                  Forbidden love destroys the lovers. (Romeo and Juliet)

4.                  Jealousy destroys itself. (Othello)

5.                  Unbridled ambition destroys the person. (Macbeth)

6.                  Faith conquers pride.

7.                  Intelligence overcomes superstition.

8.                  Procrastination destroys the person. (Hamlet)

9.                  Poverty destroys society.

10.             Love overcomes hatred.

The order of each of these, and thus the outcome, could be reversed. The number is infinite. The Premise not only provides conflict but also takes sides in that conflict. By doing this, the Premise provides meaning and exposes an underlying truth, or what the author believes to be a truth. And now we come to one of the great paradoxes of novel writing:

The Premise, though it is the “be all and end all” of storytelling, will never be explicitly stated in the novel.

If it is stated explicitly, you will be preaching to your reader. The reader must be left on his own to form his opinion of what the subject matter means. The author can only go so far down the road to getting his meaning across.

To make sure you understand the concept of Premise, let’s approach the origin of your Premise one more time:

Question: How and where do you find your premise?

Answer: You must uncover the Premise from within your idea for the novel.

The idea will usually, but not always, come first. You’ll pull some event from your life experience or somewhere else, and then start looking for meaning and a Premise. The Premise will seem trivial but take on greater significance within the full context of the novel. As you develop all the elements, you should always return to Premise for guidance. You will get sick of hearing about Premise before it is all over, but don't let your irritation get the better of you. Your ability to handle Premise will either make or break you as a writer. (For another discussion of Premise, see Lajos Egri, The Art of Dramatic Writing.)

EXAMPLES FROM STORIES WE ALL KNOW

The conflict can be internal to a single individual as in Dostoeveky’s Crime and Punishment. Raskolnikov is in conflict with himself. He eventually turns himself in for murdering two sisters. In the movie Groundhog Day, the Premise might be stated as: “man overcomes his own base nature, or in three words: man overcomes himself.” One might suppose God is the teacher giving Phil the chance to live one day over and over until he gets it right. Phil’s conflict is with himself. He can’t get past his base self to win the girl he loves.

It can be a conflict between two rights (which turns out to be the most philosophically profound) as in the Dustin Hoffman/Meryl Streep movie Kramer vs. Kramer. Both parents love their child and have a right to custody. Note that the conflict is expressed in this movie's title and that it relates to Premise. But it doesn’t tell the outcome, so it isn’t the Premise. So what is the Premise? Could be “altruism overcomes personal need”. That might be it for Meryl Streep’s character, but I’m sure you can come up with many more that apply.

Since the Premise is about conflict between opposing wills, let's say a few words about what does not fit this pattern. Frequently we hear adventure stories expressed as “man versus the mountain”. But a mountain has no will, so this is not even a true conflict. A man or woman struggling to climb a mountain is struggling against their own will and physical limitations. This is an internal struggle and can be covered by Premise quite easily as “man overcomes himself”. In this same vein, “man overcomes lion” is a worthy Premise because a lion has a will and can stalk the man just the same as can a serial killer.

Remember that the Premise will expose character and the nature of the conflict as well as dictate the beginning and end of the story. It exposes character because the individuals who are in conflict care deeply about what they are in conflict over. The way they deal with the conflict, i.e., whether they want to talk or grab a gun, exposes character. The story starts when the conflict is locked and ends when it is resolved.

The Premise may, and usually does, raise a question of universal significance. The movie Star Wars has a cosmic landscape because of "The Force" and has universal significance because of the struggle between good and evil. The universal question raised concerns the relationship between good and evil. Which is the most powerful? Which is the right path to follow? The universal comes from the particular. Luke, the embodiment of "good," is a single human being engaged in a battle against Darth Vader, the embodiment of "evil" or "The Dark Side" of the Force.

A Premise will exist for each sub-conflict (subplot) in the novel. This then defines what a subplot is. All subplots must also be resolved by the end of the novel. This is what we commonly call “tying up all the loose ends”. Realizing that each subplot is essentially a conflict that must be locked in the beginning (or close to it) and resolved at the end (or close to it) provides the author with a handle to manage them.

Something that may not be immediately obvious is that Premise always, at least on a metaphoric level, connotes cosmic forces at work and provides the spiritual level necessary to insure you’ll capture the full human experience. It may, but not necessarily, contain a moral. It may be optimistic, pessimistic or simply state the way the world works. In the movie Titanic, the cosmic conflict is “God destroys arrogance.” This conflict is locked when Cal (Rose's fiancé) says, “Even God couldn’t sink the Titanic.” The principle conflict between people in the story is between Rose and Cal. Rose is the protagonist, Cal the antagonist. This conflict is locked when Rose boards Titanic and likens it to a slave ship and she being taken aboard in chains. The Premise for this conflict is “freedom overcomes bondage.” The word “freedom” tells us a lot about Rose as a character. We know she craves freedom above all else. The word “bondage” also tells us a lot about her mother and her fiancé. They believe Rose should bow to society’s demands and their own requirements of her. The word "overcomes" also tells us the ending of the story. We know Rose will escape to live her life to its fullest. The screen writer knows the outcome before he starts writing, but the audience will only learn the full nature of the Premise at the end.

The Premise is elusive and your impression of it may change throughout the development of the novel. Still, you need to make a guess at it to start with to organize your material and develop a complete storyline. Writing a novel is an iterative process. That’s why having a synopsis before starting the actual writing of the novel is crucial. The synopsis is the first cut at the complete storyline.

STORY MILESTONES

Now that we have defined the Premise, which gives us the principal characters, identifies the primary conflict and provides the beginning and ending of the novel, we can start to uncover more of the novel’s structure. 

First of all, let me say that a novel is a little like a life. Life has a beginning (birth) and an ending (death). The birth of a novel is locking the conflict through the coming together of the protagonist and the antagonist, a little like the sperm and the egg. The end of the novel through conflict resolution is its death. The story is over, finished, its life expended. This then is the basic structure of a novel. But we can define structure further.

Remember in what follows that the Premise never appears as an explicit part of the structure. The Premise is the unseen force driving the novel. Structure comes from the natural elements of storytelling. Applying it to your idea will open it up and reveal the depth of your own story. (Also see Syd Field, Screenplay.)

THE NOVEL DIAGRAM

To help visualize the structure of a novel, examine the diagram below. All the major plot events and resulting action are depicted and explained in the following narrative.

BEGINNING: PUTTING THE CHARACTERS IN MOTION

Locking the conflict. The modern American novel generally will have some event at the beginning that puts the main characters in conflict and thus sets them in motion. You might say that this activates the Premise. Some call this “the hook” because it “hooks” the reader’s interest, but that term doesn’t necessarily relate to conflict or define the relationship of the beginning, “the hook”, to the rest of the story. Locking the central conflict defines the scope of the story. To the extent that the conflict is delayed from the start of the narrative, the reader will puzzle over what the story is about and thus whether or not he is interested. (For further information see Blacker, The Elements of Screenwriting.)

FIRST PLOT POINT

One quarter of the way into the novel, a major event occurs that deepens the conflict and takes the story in a new direction, a direction on which the story will continue for the rest of the novel. It exposes the true nature of the central conflict. It will be an unexpected addition to the novel and renew the reader’s interest. This constitutes the end of the beginning. Nothing really new will be introduced from here on. All the main characters must be on stage at this point. In Groundhog Day, the first plot point occurs when Phil wakes the second morning to find that the holiday is repeating. This is the first plot point, and the rest of the movie follows that format. In the movie Titanic, this is where Rose contemplates suicide standing over the railing at the edge of the ship.

The concept of a “First Plot Point” has a rather remarkable connection with ancient Greek religions. The ancient Greeks realized that life is punctuated with a few major events, such as puberty, that constitute life transitions. Cult initiation ceremonies within the ancient religion defined the nature of these events and helped the initiate make the life transition. For women of Attica this took the form of a symbolic death ritual at puberty, which was held at Brauron on the eastern coast. The girls “danced the Bear” and sacrificed a she-goat that represented their maiden selves. This was the transformation of the maiden into full womanhood and was visualized as the death of the maiden she had been and her rebirth as a young woman. She was still the same person, but transformed. You might say she'd reached the end of the beginning of her life.

Using the analogy of a novel as a life would then mean that the novel should also undergo this transformation if it is to become fully formed and adult in scope. The conflict locked in the beginning must be transformed into one of greater significance thus forcing greater involvement of the characters. Just as ancient women underwent the initiation at puberty, the one-quarter point of their life, so the novel will undergo this conflict transformation at the one-quart point. This is “the end of the beginning”, and for the next quarter of the novel, the characters play out the consequences of Plot Point 1 as the confrontation escalates.

MID-NOVEL REVERSAL

Preventing the mid-novel sag. A novel is a long narrative art form, and reader interest can only be maintained by constant change. This means that the nature of the conflict, not just the intensity of it, must also change. Some changes in the storyline will be greater than others, and this is one of the largest changes. But this change isn’t anything artificial that must be superimposed on the novel structure. This reversal occurs because of the nature of prolonged conflict and the art of telling a long story. This change may not be present at all in a short story. Halfway through a long story, it undergoes a subtle but profound change. Generally this will be a reversal in the primary conflict. One might say that the reason a long story has a tendency to sag in the middle is that the storyteller isn’t fully aware of the nuances in his storyline.

Up until the midpoint, one side, protagonist or antagonist, will be the aggressor. After it, the opposite side will be the aggressor. In Titanic, the ships floats for the first half of the movie (the builders are the aggressor), but right in the middle it hits an ice berg and sinks for the second half of the movie (God is the aggressor). In James Fenimore Cooper’s, The Last of the Mohicans, the Indians chase the white men for the first half of the novel, and the white men chase the Indians for the second half. In the television series Law and Order, they always lock the conflict (usually discover the body) before they show the actors and go to the commercial. One half-hour into the show (the mid point), they always put the handcuffs on the suspect and the police officers turn the case over to the lawyers. In the movie Jaws, the fish chases the people for the first half, and they chase the fish the second half. Other examples are practically everywhere you look. 

SECOND PLOT POINT

The second plot point occurs three quarters of the way through the novel. This event leads directly to the resolution of the conflict. This is the point where one of the opposing forces is revealed to be the strongest and also where the Premise is confirmed. But it is still a little short of conflict resolution. That comes at the end. What is absolutely essential here is that the protagonist exhibit “the agony of choice.” At this point in Titanic, Rose is aboard the lifeboat with her mother and headed for a life of servitude, but suddenly she comes to her senses, realizes she is making a mistake, and climbs out of the lifeboat back onto Titanic to be with Jack. Cameron stretches out the scene with the music screaming while Rose agonizes over her decision. Again, she shows her willingness to risk everything to get what she wants. Jack is her symbol of freedom.

THE END: CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Novelists (and screenwriters) have no end of problems with endings. Generally this is because they do not understand their Premise. Premise dictates the end. The main characters, the conflict, setting, everything has been selected to fulfill the Premise. At the end, one of the major forces in the novel overcomes the other according to the dictates of the Premise. The author who has done his plotting well knows the end of the story before he ever puts pencil to paper, because he believes in his Premise. He may, however, struggle over how to accomplish it.

The only thing that may occur after the conflict resolution is the revelation of its effects, the denouement. At the end of Titanic we see pictures of Rose throughout her life, all her accomplishments brought about through exercising her freedom of choice which she learned about from Jack. If in the end, Rose had left the dock with Cal, the entire audience would have groaned. Instead she hid her face from Cal and turned away. James Cameron knew the end of the movie before he wrote the screenplay. I’d bet my house on it.

Chances are you've seen all these movies and read these novels and never realized the structure underneath. That's the nature of plotting. Story structure disappears behind events just the same as a home's framework has been covered with drywall, paint, texturing and isn't visible. A novelist, or any advanced storyteller for that matter, can't afford to operate solely on intuition. That's the reason some novels fail so miserably. They haven’t built the framework and actually don’t know the nature of storytelling. But don’t paste the storyline artifacts onto your story. Examine your story to uncover these turn of events, and place them where they should occur.

HOW TO ANSWER THE QUESTION: “What is your novel about?”

This is one of the most frustrating questions a novelist can be asked, and you’d be surprised at how few can provide a good answer. You can answer this question in many ways, but at least with the description of the novel's structure provided above, you'll know the answer. You can answer by giving the Premise, stating the storyline, or providing a short description of your main character. You can answer on the Premise level by saying that it’s about the cosmic struggle between good and evil, for instance. On the story level James Cameron could say that Titanic is about the sinking of a great ship. On the character level he could say it’s about a woman who gains her freedom from family domination while surviving the sinking of the Titanic.

CONFLICT INTENSITY

The conflict doesn’t have to be a “to-the-death” struggle. It can be emotional, as in Kramer vs. Kramer where the characters are sympathetic to each other and share a love for their little boy. They don’t allow their conflict to become destructive. It is often said that the most meaningful stories are those where the conflict is between two rights. Good does not change nor does evil. The more interesting struggle is between two good characters who are trying to determine what is good, you might say the nature of goodness. That was the nature of the conflict in Kramer vs. Kramer.

So don’t get stuck in the “fight-to-the-death,” “take-no-prisoners” mentality. The conflict can even be obscure as in Arthur C. Clark’s Rendezvous with Rama, where the Premise seems to be "Curiosity overcomes Narcissism." In this scifi novel, conflict doesn’t seem to exist at all. Its forward motion appears to be driven solely by discovery. What’s inside the mysterious spaceship entering the solar system is the focus for most of the novel, and the big question is, Why are these visitors from outer space coming to see us? Only at the very end do we realize how narcissistic our perceptions are, and meaning finally comes to the story when the spaceship dips in close to the sun to scoop up plasma, which tells us unequivocally that it's on a fueling run and has no interest in us at all. The conflict all along has been between perception and reality. And it comes as a revelation.

This then is the basics of plotting. Remember that your Premise will many times be obscure, but don’t let that fact permit your focus to drift from it. Allow the Premise and the storyline structure to focus your material. Once you have a storyline you can start working earnestly on the narrative technique you’ll employ to actually start writing the novel. We’ll get to narration shortly, but first we need to talk about character development in more detail.

FOUR SENTENCE CHAPTER SUMMARY

1.      Storyline gives the novel length.

2.     Characters give the novel breadth.

3.     Premise gives the novel depth.

4.     A novel with these elements is three-dimensional and simulates life.

ASSIGNMENT

The only way to thoroughly learn a subject is to put it into practice; therefore, the following assignment for the reader is appropriate:

1.   Develop your own novel concept by stating the novel’s Premise using the definition above.

2.    List the major events that define the geometry of your novel and provide a short description of each.

3.    Write both a one-sentence and a one-paragraph description of the complete storyline. State the central question posed by the Premise.