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Premises Part #2

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Writing premises can be daunting. What’s the best way to state your story in one line? Generally, you want to include the idea at the heart of the story. But there’s still other elements at play when making a great premise. Blake Snyder, screenwriter and author of the Save the Cat series, has lots of advice on how to make your premise the best it can be.

He has four elements that he thinks make a good premise. They are irony, full mental picture, audience and cost, and a killer title.

Irony is another element that’s hard to quantify. It is the irresistible idea that makes it stand out from other works and makes audiences want to know how it ends. Try and make your premises irresistible. Full mental picture means you can envision a full story being possible from your one line. Your target audience and budget are also implied in the premise. Don’t worry about title for now, but come back to it later.

He also has three major problems a premise could have, too plain, too complex, and hiding the ball. Too plain lacks the irresistible quality, too complex makes it hard to explain in one sentence. Hiding the ball is when the writer won’t give away the secret or twist in their premise, so it comes off as bland.

Blake Snyder has two premise formulas based on his 15 step story structure, (Blake Snyder Beat Sheet) which I’ll cover more later. These formulas aren’t essential, but can act as a guideline when you start on your premise.

#1: On the verge of a Stasis=Death moment, a flawed protagonist Breaks into Two; but when Midpoint happens, they must learn Theme Stated before All is lost.

#2: On the verge of a Stasis=Death moment, a flawed protagonist has an Inciting incident and Breaks into Two with the Subplot; but when Midpoint happens, they must learn Theme Stated before All is lost to defeat a Flawed Antagonist.

A stasis=death moment is when your main character knows they are missing something in their life and need to change. The inciting incident is when a way to change presents itself, and Break into Two is when they accept that change.

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Premises

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Premises are story brought down to its simplest form. Sometimes called a logline or one-line, it’s your story told in one sentence. I can’t stress the importance of the premise enough. Without a premise, your plot will often become pointless or off track. I’ll explain the basic elements of a good premise here.

Premises aren’t summaries, they don’t explain the whole story. They are what the majority of the story is about, it’s the idea you’d pitch to others. It’s who fights who over what. Good premises have a who and a what.

The who is your main character(s) and main opponent(s). They are the characters who fight throughout your story. They could be a “two-faced lawyer” or a “naïve artist”. But they are described in the premise with a simple description of who they are and an adjective describing them, often their main character flaw.

The what is the desire of your main character. It’s their goal they pursue during the story. Because stories are driven by characters who want something, the premise is driven by a desire as well. It could be dating someone they like or stopping the opponent’s evil plan. Whatever it is, it makes up the what of the premise.

You want premises to be clear and general. Don’t go into extensive detail. Reduce your story into the simplest form. Your premise should also display the right tone and genre. You don’t want a thriller to appear like a lighthearted comedy.

Premises keep you on the right track, but they also allow you to explore your options. Once you have your story idea in one line, you should ask yourself questions on how to expand that idea. You should also consider possible problems with each premise like having to introduce lots of characters or a unique setting. Being aware of possible problems lets you prepare for them before you begin.

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Screenplays

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Screenwriters aren’t like novelists; we only have 120 pages to tell our stories. We don’t have time to discover the story in the telling, we have to know how the story will progress and pay off.  

We have to preplan our story before we sit down to write it because without knowing the direction the story will go and the result of the character, we will be lost, and the story will lose impact.

When you begin thinking about a story, you must know the stories ending. You can explore more because you know how the story will end. The ending of a story is when your character has a revelation about their main weakness and has a choice that reveals if they have really changed or not.  

Knowing what the revelation and decision will be at the start of writing lets you set up the story and it’s theme. From there, you can decide if your story ends positively, negatively, or with irony. Ending with irony means it ends with mostly positive or mostly negative but contains both positive and negative values at the end.

Stories follow a character as they pursue a desire until they either fail or succeed, and the screenplays can’t stray too far from that desire line. They are made to show a character with a strong weakness either changing or refusing to change.

Robert Mckee wrote in Story: “The function of structure is to provide progressively building pressures that force characters into more and more difficult dilemmas” Structure is the relation between the parts and the whole. Screenplay elements must all be essential, and they are connected. They are all connected to the theme. I’ll discuss how to do so in future posts.

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Screenplay Form

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Screenplays are different from other literature. They act as more of a guide to make film. I think of them as a film recipe or blueprint. It shows all the necessary components but leaves room for the baking or building. And yet, screenplays must also be dynamic to read. Thousands of scripts are read each year, and yours needs to stand out. So how do you make something that’s both a guide and a dynamic reading experience? Screenplay form.

The thing to keep in mind while writing screenplays is to keep action lines and dialogue short. They can’t slow down for long descriptions. Try and keep them as efficient as possible. Limit your paragraphs into to four lines and break up description into multiple lines to keep it exciting.

But you aren’t just turning large paragraphs into smaller ones. Screenplays are supposed to have roughly the same pace as the film, and paragraph breaks are a great way to show pace. Each seperate line, whether it’s a scene header or a line of dialogue, indicates when the shots in a scene change focus. The frecuency of these breaks suggests the frecuency of cuts and keeps the readers engaged.

Although screenplays don’t have room for large description paragraphs, they can still have some level of description. The choice of words can help set the tone of the scene and define characters. A car that is polished says something about a person, and so does a rusty car. A tree that’s branching has a different tone than one that’s twisting outward.

Making your descriptions better is simple. Replace generic nouns and verbs, cut adverbs, and use description paragraphs to establish character. Also, get rid of “is” and “are” because screenplays are in absolute present tense, and get rid of we see, we hear, etc. “We” doesn’t exist.

Screenplays can’t have inner dialogue or metaphors, unless you can clearly see them. There’s a common phrase “film is a visual medium.” It means your descriptions and scenes should aim to be visual. Some scenes may be best told without words. This is because actions speak louder than words. Action is largely how character is revealed and a great way to convey exposition.

There’s also a phrase “Show, don’t tell”, that you hear tossed around constantly. It mean make your exposition visual. Instead of giving a long winded backstory on how someone used to be a musician, instead show any oway you could show it visually. But remember, conveying information visually is more about character behavior than documentaries of the characters lives.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my guide on screenplay form. What should I do next?

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Writing Screenplays

When I first started as a screenwriter, I had no idea what I was doing. I began scrolling through images and websites trying to cobble together the contradictory information to find the right screenplay format. I was left confused and misinformed. What’s worse, most major studios with think of you as an amateur without everything in the right place. To ensure your screenwriting journey doesn’t start as turbulent as mine did, I’ve made a guide on how to properly write your screenplays.

The first thing to know when you’re writing is that the font is set in stone. You can’t get fancy, it must be Courier with a font size 12. This is because 1 page is equal to 1 minute of screen time. This isn’t always the case, but having the right font helps solidify it.

Screenplays are divided into three areas, the far left, the center, and the far right. This helps keep everything organized and easy to read. I’ll run through what a standard scene looks like with descriptions of where everything goes

FADE IN:

INT/EXT. THE LOCATION - DAY/NIGHT

Every story begins with FADE IN: up in the far left. Every scene begins with a scene header, sometimes called slugline, that shows where the scene takes place. The first part you write is whether the scene takes place in the interior or exterior of a location, abbreviated to INT or EXT. You use a period and a space to seperate it from the second part, the location of your scene. Next, you add a space, a dash, and another space to lead into the last part, whether the scene takes place in the DAY or NIGHT.

Scene description is also put in the left margin. Characters names when they are first introduced are bolded. Like REMICK.

REMICK

(Explaining)

The center of the page is where dialogue is put, with the characters bolded names above the text. If characters speak with a specific emotion or action, put it in parentheses right above the words. Only do this when necessary

REMICK (CON’t)

The (CON’t) stands for continued, and is put in paraphrases next to the name. This is also true for off-screen (O.S), and Voice-over (V.O)

4.

DISSOLVE TO:

The far right includes page numbers at the top of every page and the occasional transition between scenes. You don’t need to end every scene with CUT TO: , as it is obvious that there has been a cut. Instead, with only a few rare case, go straight to the next scene header.

You end screenplays with a far right FADE OUT:

Or a centered THE END

That’s my guide for thee screenwriting format. If you want a more in depth guide that includes proper titles and correct page margins, check out the website, there’s info in the description. I hope you enjoyed this post!

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Example Post

This is an example of what my new post style will look like.

I will be restarting my account very soon and producing new posts. None of the old posts will be deleted.

My main problems with this account were the inconsistent schedule, the lack of a professionalism and clear, easy-to-read posts, and having no structure to my posts.

I’m still working out my schedule, and I plan on being a couple posts ahead so I never get behind, but for now I’ll detail my plans for the design and structure.

My new account design greatly improves the professionalism of the account. My new profile picture alone is a great improvement from the low budget starting logo.

My oldest posts were images off a computer screen that were often slanted and completely between posts. They often had smudges or words obscured.

My newer posts had a large amount of text that was resized to fit on the screen, leaving the blocks of texts different sizes. The colors were often bright and sometimes unreadable.

My new posts will have a clear white background that leaves large amounts of text easily readable.

As for a clear design and easy to find information, my old posts would hop from topic to topic, greatly differing in quality of analysis. I often left topics that I didn’t want to cover alone and made tips that had little of substance.

To improve the substance of each post, each post will have an average of three slides of information. Each week I’ll release three tips that all deal with a central topic, resulting in 9 slides on a single topic.

This will create an effect where each row on my homepage will be a different subject that is easily visible if you look for it. The posts will teach the basic to advanced knowledge to form a comprehensive guide to the topic.

FADE OUT: