Definition
A premise is the central concept or situation that your entire story grows from. It's the answer to 'what is this book about?' before you get into plot, character, or theme. A strong premise is usually expressible as a 'what if' question: What if a boy discovered he was a wizard? What if dinosaurs were brought back to life? The premise isn't the plot — it's the seed the plot grows from. It should be compelling enough on its own that someone hearing it immediately wants to know what happens next.
Why It Matters
Your premise is the first thing that sells your book — to agents, editors, and readers scanning shelves or scrolling online. A weak premise makes everything downstream harder: your query letter struggles, your blurb falls flat, and your marketing has nothing to hook onto. A strong premise does half the work for you because people can't stop themselves from wondering how the story plays out.
Types of Premise
Famous Examples
The premise is irresistible on contact: scientists clone dinosaurs from ancient DNA and build a theme park, which inevitably goes wrong. You barely need to explain the plot — the premise carries everything.
An astronaut is stranded alone on Mars and must survive using only his wits and whatever the mission left behind. The premise is so immediately gripping that Weir's query practically wrote itself.
Students at an idyllic English boarding school slowly discover the horrifying purpose they were created for. The premise unfolds gradually, and its power comes from what it implies rather than what it states outright.
A wife vanishes and all evidence points to the husband — then the story flips everything you thought you knew. The premise sets up one kind of book and delivers another entirely.
Common Mistakes
Your premise is the seed — 'a boy discovers he's a wizard.' Your plot is what grows from it — Hogwarts, Voldemort, seven years of escalating conflict. If your premise requires three paragraphs to explain, you're describing plot.
Not every premise needs to be high-concept, but it does need a hook. If you can't make someone curious in one sentence, try pushing your 'what if' further. What's the most extreme, interesting, or emotionally charged version of your idea?
A premise that sounds great as a one-liner can collapse when you try to sustain it for 80,000 words. Before committing, ask yourself: does this generate enough conflict, character growth, and story to fill a whole book?
Try It Yourself
Write down your story idea as a 'what if' question in one sentence. Then write three more versions, each time pushing the premise further — raise the stakes, sharpen the conflict, or make the situation more specific. Pick the version that makes you most excited to write the book, and test it by telling it to someone. If they immediately ask 'what happens next?' you've got a strong premise.
Turn your premise into a plan
Novelium's plotting tools help you take a strong premise and build it out into scenes, acts, and a full story structure — so your 'what if' becomes a manuscript.