Anatomy of a Premise Line

I have been working on my memoir EIGHT yes EIGHT years and when I started pitching it, editors would ask me what my story was about!!. Jeff Lyons was recommended to me by a NYT bestselling author who said Jeff was brilliant. And she was right. In my first free consult with him, I explained my book and in 20 minutes he figured out the major problem with my story. I signed up for his 5 week class and bought the book. Throughout his process of developing a story structure for my memoir, Jeff and I had weekly one on ones in addition to the weekly class and tons of feedback on our weekly assignments. In addition to being brilliant, the great thing about Jeff is that he is patient and kind. THANK YOU. I have a structure for my story.

So...I knew I had a good story and believed it was well-written, but was having great difficulty knowing how to condense a 100K novel into a compelling pitch in order to submit it successfully to literary agents and publishers. Ah, the dreaded submission process!Enter Jeff Lyons. I "found" him via Reedsy where he was offering a free podcast to writers of all stripes who needed help conveying what their books were REALLY about. Based on how impressed I was by the clear process he used, that is outlined in this book, I engaged Jeff to help me -- with stunning results.Here's where Anatomy of a Premise Line becomes golden. If you already have a handle on your story, this process is a cinch to follow. If you don't, it will really highlight problems (like, maybe you really don't have much of a plot?) you might otherwise not see until you've written tens of thousands of words that need to be scrapped (or self-published, with only your Mum and Auntie willing to read them).If you were trying to paint a masterpiece and had barely picked up a paintbrush before, you might want to start with a "paint-by-numbers" set (or maybe I'm revealing my age here and they don't make those anymore!). Similarly, we long-form writers often have trouble taking on the role of advertising executive or marketing expert and boiling down the core of our work into a paragraph or less. Jeff's step-by-step process, illustrated with lots of examples, is a similarly essential guide to producing a premise line, tag line and all the other "lines" that studio execs, literary agents, and publishers want to have grab them before they commit to taking your work.And, once you have this nailed, novelists (like me) you'll have the back cover blurb done and dusted!!A highly recommended read.

This book is a revelation. I have read other books, and tried different methods, and never produced a coherent story. They were all bad. Now, reading this book and following the steps, my story is clear, it's organic, it's solid.I won't lie, it's hard work.Some of the concepts are tough to grasp, not that they are complicated but it's not easy to change your approach. But once you do, you understand the building blocks of a story, and knowing these can build a foundation to lay the rest of your story on.I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Layer by layer, it shows how to build a storyWhere I failed before, one thing Jeff goes into is the difference between a story and a situation (both are equally good). A situation is a tale where the protagonist has no personal growth, and simply solves a problem and the tale is over. Poirot doesn't change, he solves the crime, and is the same as always. Gravity - Sandra Bullock gets back on Earth, and the movie ends. Both are situations.A story is where the character has a moral dilemma to overcome. In Jaws, Roy Sheider is afraid of the water, but goes out on a boat to kill a monster shark. He overcomes his fear and saves the island.The books I read taught me how to write a situation; problem is I had a story. Using Jeff's methods I was able to iron out the kinks. With my characters, and my setup, I had the wrong story. I changed the setting, I changed the outcome, and everything snapped in place. It's hard work, but jeeze it works.I thought I was a pantser, the other systems never worked. I was wrong, this really works. .

First purchased AOAPL last year, and it has been a staple in my nightstand reading ever since.If you're like me - no stranger to books on fiction craft, there comes a point where you find yourself wading through a morass of advice and uncertainty as to where to begin.Mr. Lyon's book cuts right to point: your premise line is step one. That is, if you want to spare yourself as much heartache as possible. Echoing similar conviction to John Truby's "Anatomy of Story," we read that story failure almost always occurs first at the premise line, and that, if you truly invest in that component first, you can keep your story from getting lost in superficial elements, or "bells and whistles."Such emphasis is given because the thing we call the premise line is not merely a retrospective summary to sell an idea after pages are written. The author clearly demonstrates that, on the contrary, your premise line is a "container" whose contents map out the route your story must inevitably take to be a story. The conditions that set up the moral fall of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, the tension and camaraderie of the crew in Jaws, the turmoil that brings renewed outlook to George Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life - these were not padded in during the third draft, but forecasted by the premise line as a foundational cornerstone.Even if you're not into writing, there's a certain pleasure that comes from looking under the hood of your favorite movies/novels and better understanding why they are your favorite, seeing that their dramatic potential is encapsulated in the germ that is the premise line.Overall, highly recommended.

There are hundreds of books and methods that teach you how to write a book. What is special in Jeff Lyons' book is that it's about storytelling. How to narrate a compelling story. It teaches you how to test your structure, sort out what works and what doesn't, what is confusing or boring, what needs to go in and what to leave out, what is missing. You can use the method before you start writing or when you are in the middle of a draft or when you have accumulated ten of thousands of words or a great number of scenes. This is a book about storytelling and testing whether your story works. By dissecting the components of your story and following the steps to write a premise line, a logline and a synopsis, you get a clear idea about your story. It is a super tool.The only downside to the book is that it is very expensive in the UK ( much more expensive that other books of its kind).

Well worth every penny or cent. Cuts through the arguments against outlining with a scapel, then delivers a masterclass on honing creative ideas into workable stories. Highly recommended.

Como la columna vertebral lo hace al cuerpo, una premisa sólida y bien hecha sostendrá toda tu historia, por lo que es el elemento clave antes de escribir cualquier guión. Para esto, Jeff Lyons da unos consejos para no perder tiempo escribiendo guiones sin dirección y dedicarle el tiempo suficiente para escribir una buena premisa. Una excelente fuente de información para los aspirantes a guionistas.

This process works for me. Jeff leads you from the glimmer of a character or a question to a fully fleshed premise, log line and synopsis that set up the perfect foundation to write that story.

The anatomy of a Premise Line has a life and force of its own.It can be applied to every form of art beginning with writing.Something to be integrated for life. Very powerful!As an online Stanford student I have the privilege to study under his brilliance and generosity.Mercedes Serralles