This setup breakdown is meant to help you understand the overarching premise of a book. By studying things like loglines, blurbs, and other forms of distilled content, you can better understand story structure (fiction) or content organization (nonfiction). This can assist you in becoming a stronger book planner and book summarizer. Being able to succinctly sum up what your book is about helps you with querying trade publishing agents and acquisitions editors. It also helps you create your own book blurb when it’s time to put your book on the market, if you’re an indie author.
Blurb
This is what the author / publisher has used as the book descriptor on the book’s sales page. Take a look at what it does and does not tell you about the book.
What would you add?
What would you remove?
What would you rearrange?
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
When a vicious band of half-men, half beasts invade the Two Rivers seeking their master’s enemy, Moiraine persuades Rand al’Thor and his friends to leave their home and enter a larger unimaginable world filled with dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.
Five Ps of Premise Prep
Based on my reading and interpretation of the book, here is what the Five Ps might look like for The Eye of the World.
After reading the book, do you find that you agree or disagree with my take?
Which changes would you make?
Person: Rand al’Thor is a shepherd’s son from a small village called Two Rivers in Westwood.
Pain: Rand isn’t really his father’s son, making him question everything he thought he knew about himself and everything others have told him.
Prize(s): To find out who (or what) he really is; to figure out who he can trust; to make it through this perilous journey alive.
Pitfalls: His small-town life leaving him with no knowledge of the outside world; never having been taught to fight; not knowing his true origins; being separated from his home and (adoptive) father; not understanding if he is wanted / needed for righteous or nefarious reasons nor by whom; trollocs and other monsters; The One Power and its wielders; minions of the Father of Lies.
Promise: Rand will receive the answer to some or all of the questions he has about himself and his abilities. The quest will be successful. This story is one of action and adventure.
Premise
A book premise takes elements from your premise preparation and uses them to sum up the central story / concept of your book. They can be written in a multitude of ways. The ones below differ greatly from the one used as a blurb. Studying book blurbs and synopses can help you get better at creating your own book descriptions, blurbs, and summaries. Premises can be written as a single sentence:
Rand wants to keep himself and his friends safe, but he must leave his village and overcome his lack of knowledge about the world outside his hometown in order to do so.
Premises can also be fleshed out a bit more to help clarify the concept. This version can be crafted into a book blurb later.
Rand al’Thor is content in his life as the son of a sheepherder in the tiny town of Two Rivers.
But the day after friendly outlanders come to visit the village, monsters nearly wipe Two Rivers off the map.
Now, Rand will leave his father and community behind to traverse the land in search of a way to rid the world of the minions of darkness and heal the peoples and lands that have been devastated.
Though he travels with those more powerful, more knowledgeable, and more skilled than he, the fate of the world will ultimately rest in his young hands.
How would you re-write these?
Logline
Though The Eye of the World is not a screenplay, a logline is another kind of summary tool that helps you think through what the core of a particular story is. I construct a premise and a logline while I’m in the book planning stages.
The son of a sheepherder must find a way to defeat the evil that destroyed his hometown.
How would you rewrite this logline?
What elements of this premise could you change to make it your own?
What Stands Out
Women-centric Magic System
As old as The Wheel of Time series is, it was nice to see a magic system that only women were capable of using safely. I’ve not seen that much in my fantasy reading.
Ready to Read?
Check out how this setup works itself out in narrative form by reading The Eye of the World.