86
27
Test your premise
to prove it worthy.
Editors and agents are all looking for the “same thing,”
only “different.”
That’s the elusive marketing angle that tells them:
a) we can sell this because similar books have sold be-
fore; but b) there’s a freshness to it.
So how do you create this fusion?
It all starts with your premise. Which is another way
of saying your big idea.
When you come up with an idea for a novel, write it
down in a dedicated fi le or document. Collect possible
story ideas the way a kid might collect autumn leaves or
sea shells. Whatever you think up, toss into a fi le.
Eventually, you’ll need to decide which premise
you’re going to develop and turn into a book.
Sort through all of your ideas and choose the ones
you like best. I put my favorite ideas into another fi le I
call “Front Burner Concepts.” These are the ones I think
have the most potential. I go over these frequently, re-
arranging the order, adding new ones, dropping others.
Then I have to get to the decision point. Which con-
cept am I going to spend the next several months turning
into a novel?
Z4273i_066-099.indd 86Z4273i_066-099.indd 86 9/24/09 11:20:55 AM9/24/09 11:20:55 AM
87
Try to push your “front burner” premises through
the following fi lter.
1. Is your Lead character someone you can see and
hear? If not:
•
Cast the character. Really “see” him.
•
Do some dialogue where the Lead intro-
duces himself to you.
2. Does your Lead character have heroic qualities,
either evident or potential? Defi ne them.
3. Who is the Opposition, and how is this charac-
ter stronger than the Lead?
4. How is “death overhanging”? (Is it physical, pro-
fessional, psychological? All three?)
5. Can you see a climactic battle, won by the Lead?
6. Can you envision a possible inner journey?
•
Begin at the end. Because of the climactic
action, how will the Lead grow?
•
Or, at the very least, consider this: What
will the Lead have learned that is essential
to his humanity?
Example: At the end of Lethal Weapon, Riggs
gives up the bullet he’s saved to shoot himself.
Z4273i_066-099.indd 87Z4273i_066-099.indd 87 9/24/09 11:20:55 AM9/24/09 11:20:55 AM
88
He has learned that life is worth living and that
love from friends is worth accepting.
7. Take a break.
•
During this break, do you find yourself
thinking about your Lead character? Not
your plot, your Lead. Is she starting to be-
come real to you? And, most important,
are you beginning to care enough about
her to give her a story? Do you feel her
story has to be written?
•
When you wake up in the morning, are you
still juiced about the Lead and the story?
8. Do a cold-hearted market analysis of your idea.
•
Who will want to read this story, and why?
•
Will the answer to the first question be
enough for a publisher to publish your
book? (Be honest.)
•
Can you truly see browsers in a store pick-
ing up your book and wanting to buy it?
•
Write a one-paragraph description of your
idea. Read this to several trusted friends
and ask for their reactions. If they love it,
great. If they shake their heads, find out why.
Make any changes you deem necessary.
Z4273i_066-099.indd 88Z4273i_066-099.indd 88 9/24/09 11:20:55 AM9/24/09 11:20:55 AM
89
9. Write a short e-mail to yourself, as if you were
a reader writing to a friend about what was so
great about this book. How did it make you feel?
What gripped you about it? You can do this in
general terms, but it must be enough to make
you want that book to see the light of day.
10. Put all this away for one week. During this week,
work on steps 1 through 9 with a different idea.
Then come back to your original premise and
see if you are still excited about it, if it still “calls
out to you” to be written. If so, start developing
it in earnest.
In this way, you can, in very short order, have several
possible novel ideas cooking at any one time. Eventually,
you’ll choose the one you are going to push through to
the end. That’s always a tough call! But this process is
much better than grabbing your fi rst premise and charg-
ing ahead. Much time may be wasted this way.
Ever since I started writing professionally, I told my-
self I have only a fi nite time on this earth and can only
write a fi nite number of books. I need to choose the best
ones for me and for my readers both. This is the method
I use to do that.
Z4273i_066-099.indd 89Z4273i_066-099.indd 89 9/24/09 11:20:55 AM9/24/09 11:20:55 AM
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.