So, you’ve been thinking about your protagonist for three years now. You have your antagonist in mind as well. You’ve read my last two posts about Story and Character and Four-Corner Opposition. What you need is a PREMISE.
The PREMISE is who and what the story is about. What’s that you say. You’ve also been thinking about the PREMISE for three years? You already have your PREMISE in mind because you came up with it when you came up with your protagonist?
Great!! Let’s make it better!
Again, I’ll be using some of my favorite movies to show some fabulous examples of PREMISE. I’m going to stick to my usual suspects: STAR WARS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, LOGAN, and THE LAST JEDI for comparison.
Comparative Analysis.
PREMISE can be a difficult thing to understand. My first attempt at it did not go well. I was vague and lengthy. Instead of a short concise description of who and what the story was about, I gave a dissertation. Not only the who and the what, but the why, the how and existential thought process behind my thinking. I was trying way too hard.
Coming up with a good PREMISE is hard work. I’m still not quite there, but I’m getting better. A good exercise is to come up with the PREMISE for the good movies you like. The reason behind this is that these movies have already been made. They’re good for a reason, they’re probably simple to understand as well. Right now, yours and mine aren’t!
Examples of PREMISE.
STAR WARS is about a young farm boy who dreams about life off the farm. When an urgent request for help arrives, along with a wise old man, he soon heads off on a journey to become a warrior set on saving the galaxy.
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is about a young warrior who desires to learn the skills of the warrior class. When his new powers reveal a startling revelation that his friends are in danger, he leaves his training to save them.
LOGAN is about an aging hero who’s lost all his friends to time and war. When a young girl shows up with powers eerily similar to his, he must fight his apathy and a younger, stronger enemy to ensure the legacy of the X-Men lives on.
You should be able to spit out your PREMISE in one to two sentences without having to look at your phone. Commit it to memory.
Define your Protagonist.
Syd Field says: “You must know who your movie is about and what happens to him or her.” To Syd, the PREMISE or SUBJECT of the screenplay is broken up into ACTION and CHARACTER. Or, the WHO and the WHAT.
The first thing your characters need is a NEED… What drives them to the resolution of your story? And this is for all your characters. They are all clamoring to get to the end of the story as the last man (or woman) standing.
This clamoring is driven by the DESIGNING PRINCIPLE, but we’ll get to that in a second. First, I want to talk about the PREMISE from a different perspective.
Bad examples of PREMISE.
Let’s take a look at THE LAST JEDI for a moment because it’s confusing as to who the story is about.
Is it about a grumpy old warrior rising above his own shadow to fight for the galaxy again? Is it about an untrained but self-made girl looking for validation of her lineage and skill? How about an aging princess/commander discovering her legacy? Or maybe it’s about a troubled teenage warrior dealing with intense emotional conflict inside himself?
Here’s my take on REY’s PREMISE from the movie.
THE LAST JEDI is about an aspiring warrior who seeks the tutelage of a man she once thought a myth, but when she experiences a series of peculiar interactions with a rising evil warrior, she sets out on a path to turn him to the light side of the Force.
I found it hard coming up with a good PREMISE for Movie Rey, there is no clear ‘what the story is about.’ In the movie, REY is all over the map. At first, it seems her goal is to convince Luke to return and save the galaxy. Then it’s to train and find her lineage. Then it’s to save Kylo Ren.
Did REY want to destroy the first order? Get Luke to fight again? Turn Kylo? Train with Luke? The answer seems to be, YES! All of them. Which is not good. A good PREMISE is precise and to the point.
I had a hard time coming up with REY’s PREMISE because Rey did not play a major role in the final climax. The Throne Room battle was a subplot climax and if anything, it was Kylo’s, not Rey’s. If Rey was the prominent protagonist, the main climax would have been hers and hers alone.
Good examples of PREMISE.
LOGAN is about a dying hero passing on his legacy and STAR WARS is about a young boy becoming a hero.
Enough said!
Re-working the bad examples.
Here’s a PREMISE I came up with for a REY centric Episode VIII.
STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII is about an aspiring warrior who seeks the tutelage of a man she once thought a myth, but when her developing powers reveal a horrible future for someone she loves, she leaves to save him and the Resistance he is becoming loyal to, whether she is ready or not.
I like this premise because it tells us what Rey values internally and that she is willing to fight at all costs. Her external goal of becoming a Jedi changes when her skills increase and she becomes more self-aware. This changes her trajectory but the last sentence gives us hope that she may still be on the path to become a Jedi.
Determine who makes the best Protagonist.
Truby notes that we must determine which Character is the best option to be the protagonist. He says to ask ourselves, “who do I love… Do I want to see him (or her) act?”
Let’s look at the PREMISE through KYLO REN’s eyes and then ask who, of the three characters (LUKE, REY, and KYLO) is the best protagonist.
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI is about a young aspiring warrior who desires to develop his power by finding and killing his former mentor, but when he experiences a series of peculiar interactions with a rising rival warrior, he sets out on a path to gain her allegiance and overthrow his master.
Like I did with REY, I struggled to come up with a premise for KYLO. The reason for this was that it appears THE LAST JEDI wants its audience to think Kylo’s antagonist was Rey, and sometimes Luke and sometimes Snoke. There is no definitive stance.
Rather than using each of these opponents as sub-plot characters and identifying one clear opponent, the movie jumps around and it’s never quite clear who is his biggest opponent.
I believe, though, that KYLO’s real opposition was his own mother, LEIA, and that was not played out enough.
In the end, if I were to evaluate the three characters of LUKE, REY, and KYLO and ask myself which one should be the main character, I would choose LUKE. The reason being is that LUKE has the biggest call to action.
Luke saved the galaxy twice before, but he was then defeated by a rising Sith presence. His friend is dead, his sister has been ousted by the New Republic and his nephew is seeking to become the strongest Sith Lord to ever roam the galaxy. He’s old, but he’s a fighter.
Organizing the story into a cohesive unit.
Syd Field talks about establishing WHO the story is about, WHAT the story is about and WHAT are the circumstances of the action. He calls this the Dramatic Premise and Dramatic Situation.
Truby talks about the DESIGNING PRINCIPLE, the thing which organizes the story as a whole.
What I think they are both pointing to is defining the ONE thing that ties everything together. This will help us to really get our PREMISE down to the nitty-gritty. It’s the thing that makes STAR WARS, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and LOGAN so great.
The DESIGNING PRINCIPLE in STAR WARS is getting the plans to the Death Star to the people who need it. It’s a race to the finish and everyone is aware what’s at stake. Luke, Leia, Obi-Wan, Han, Vader, Tarkin. Everyone wants that droid with the plans.
In THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, the DESIGNING PRINCIPLE is escaping from the Empire’s clutches to fight another day. Luke thinks he’s free to go train. Han thinks he can get Leia to freedom. Lando’s purpose in the story is to either help Han or hurt Han in escaping the Empire. He does both. Everyone is aware.
For LOGAN, the DESIGNING PRINCIPLE is getting Laura to safety in the mountains. Logan is trying to take her there. Charles is encouraging Logan along the way. And Pierce needs to stop them. It’s a race to the finish line.
I recently talked about Four-corner Opposition. We need to create characters that oppose each other because they have similar goals and attributes. Then we need to push them to the corners by creating differences.
The box which these characters create is held together on the DESIGNING PRINCIPLE.
Final Thoughts.
The PREMISE defines WHO and WHAT the story is about. We can use the DESIGNING PRINCIPLE to zone in on our PREMISE and make it as clear as we possibly can. Clarity and brevity are key. At any point in the story, we need to be able to answer the question, “who and what is this about?” And the answer should be our PREMISE.