by Elton Gahr

Created on: April 24, 2009

There is a great feeling when you know you have a great idea for a story. There in an excitement that runs through you and you find yourself drawn to the keyboard, you sit down and you prepare to type your masterpiece and then as you prepare to type the first sentence you realize, you don't have a story, you have a premise, or possibly you have a character, or just a plot. All of these are useful things but a good story is all of them and more than the sum of their parts and the only way to know if you have a story idea is to question each aspect of the story and see if you have an answer.

The premise of a story is often where the gem of the idea originates. You have a great idea about genetic alteration creating a mutant army, or about a couple falling in love in a hostage situation, or you think of a fantastic murder scene. A good premise will often make the rest of the story easy, but it has a flaw and that flaw is that a truly good premise can sometimes feel like everything that you need. You forget that you don't know anything about the people, or why it's happening or what happens after your story starts and even if you manage to get the first page down you stall. It is often easy to then assume that the premise was bad when the truth was it simply wasn't a complete story idea.

In order to have a real idea of where the story is going you also need to have characters. It isn't uncommon to come up with the character without the premise. This is most common in serialized stories and a truly three dimensional character can fit into many stories without too much trouble. Whether you have a plot or a premise though without characters that drive it forward it's almost certainly going to stall.

Third is the plot. The idea of where the story goes. It is unlikely that you will be able to create it without some idea of the premise or characters but it is entirely possible to create it without both. This is a danger because a story with a good and interesting premise and a well designed plot can have real trouble if you haven't put the effort into the characters. The same is true of a story with a good plot and interesting characters but with a premise that hasn't been well thought out.

I find it useful to think of a story as a car. The frame of the car is the premise. It holds everything solid and together, the engine of the car is the characters and the body of the car is the plot. So if you want to test your idea what you need to do is ask yourself about these three basic elements of the story. If all three are there then you will have a far better chance of creating the story that is in your mind and all that is left to do is write it and see how it turns out.

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