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 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?
Yeine Darr is an outcast from the barbarian north. But when her mother dies under mysterious circumstances, she is summoned to the majestic city of Sky, seat of the ruling Arameri family. There, to her shock, Yeine is named an heiress to the king. But the throne of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is not easily won, and Yeine is thrust into a vicious power struggle with a pair of cousins she never knew she had. As she fights for her life, she draws ever closer to the secrets of her mother’s death and her family’s bloody history.
With the fate of the world hanging in the balance, Yeine will learn how perilous it can be when love and hate — and gods and mortals — are bound inseparably.
Five Ps of Premise Prep
Based on my reading and interpretation of the book, here is what the Five Ps would look like for The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. After reading the book, do you find that you agree or disagree with my take? Which changes would you make?
Person: Yeine (yay-nah) Darr, proud leader of the Darre (dar-ay) people, daughter of (essentially) disowned child of Dekarta, ruler of the Arameri (and the known world, in essence).
Pain: Yeine’s mother was murdered and she believes it’s because Dekarta ordered his own daughter assassinated. She has a lot of hatred and resentment toward the Arameri, even though she is technically part of that blood line. She’s too Arameri to be a “true” Darre, but too Darre to be a “true” Arameri.
Prize(s): Getting back to Darr to resume taking care of her people, learning who is really behind her mother’s death, avoiding being killed by the gods at Sky, winning the inheritance, surviving the inheritance ceremony.
Pitfalls: Her grandfather’s power, her cousins wanting to murder her to get her out of the way, gods wanting to kill her, not understanding the inner workings of the inheritance, having few allies at Sky, not being able to leave sky without Dekarta’s permission.
Promise: That Yeine will figure out a way to navigate the physical, psychological, and political dangers of Sky and the Arameri family. That the story will feature complex and organic magic, action, suspense, mystery, erotica, and intrigue.
Premise
A book premise takes elements from your premise preparation and uses them to sum up the central story of your book. They can be written in a multitude of ways. The one below differs greatly from the one the author used as a blurb. Studying book blurbs and synopses can help you get better at creating your own book descriptions, blurbs, and summaries.
How would you re-write this premise?
Yeine Darr is a soldier, not a politician. She answers the summons of her grandfather, ruler of all the known world, only out of curiosity and self-preservation for her people. No one denies a request from Dekarta himself.
When Yeine realizes that she’s been summoned for reasons that don’t have anything to do with Dekarta assassinating her mother just four months prior—or killing her in order to wipe the stain of her mother’s betrayal from the face of the Earth—she is effectively trapped in his palatial compound, Sky, until she (or one of her competitive, murderous cousins) succeeds him on the throne.
She’s been dropped into a cauldron of secrets, lies, and sinister magic. With no way out but through, her soldier’s instincts are all she has to rely on for survival.
Logline
Though The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms 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.
How would you rewrite this logline?
What elements of this premise could you change to make it your own?
After being summoned to her world-ruling grandfather’s palace, the leader of a tribe of soldiers is told she cannot leave until she battles to the death for the throne.
What Stands Out
Tangible Gods
In our world, most gods are on other planes and out of our reach. But I thought it was cool that the gods in this book have physical bodies that humans can touch, harm, and even have sex with.
Ready to Read?
Check out how this setup works itself out in narrative form by reading The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.