As part of the #RewriteItClub's 12-steps of Revision I'm going to post my journey through the process. In January we looked at Premise and Story Focus. You can check out the blog post by Megan here. This is step one of the revision process, and although I'm going to use a first draft for this journey, the steps are the same to get started.
To summarize the post, the premise is the heart of your story. Without a premise you don't have a start. So I want to identify the premise sooner rather than later. To find the premise there are 5 questions to ask yourself. I've posted the questions and my responses below.
Protagonist: Who the story is about. Every story has one main protagonist, even if you have multiple POVs. Make sure you know who that main protagonist is.
This story is about Azami. A 13 year old who's a witch, and so is her mom.
Goal: What the protagonist hopes to accomplish.
Azami hopes to save her friends and town from death.
Situation: The thing that happens to start the action.
Azami comes across a dead girl in the forest, clutching the book of the dead. Azami doesn't realize what the book is right away, but soon learns this when her mom takes it to a coven meeting.
Antagonist: Who or what is working against the protagonist.
Time is working against Azami. People in her town are dying and her new friend (and crush) has been accused of being the spellcaster.
Conflict: What prevents the protagonist from accomplishing their goal.
The unknown keeps Azami from figuring out who stole the book from the coven and unleashed the death magic. Also, the coven members because they are convinced that the new girl (Azami's new friend and crush) who showed up at the same time the deaths started is the spellcaster. Because Azami is stuck between protecting her friend and searching for the theif, time is passing far quicker than she wants it to.
Now that I have the answers to the premise questions, I can pull these elements together to form the actual premise.
When Azami stumbles upon the book of the dead she sets out to find the thief who unleashed the magic killing the people of her town. Azami must uncover the thief and find a way to destroy the book before the people she loves and her new crush become the next victims.
Be sure to check out the January Twitter chat for more examples from members of #RewriteItClub. And keep following along in February when we tackle Structure, Plot Points, and Story Beats.
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