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Premise: Three senior citizens set out to prove that a woman about to go on trial for murder is not the real killer.

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Hi Peg - that's an excellent concept and great start! I'm already interested. And you will definitely use that short premise in your pitches and marketing material. Now that you're focused, what detail can you get into that premise about who these senior citizens are, what the crime the woman is accused of is, why they feel so strongly about it, and what the jeopardy is for them (a sense of the antagonist)? It's helpful to write all this out in a few paragraphs, which gives you that all-important short synopsis, and THEN start working details from that synopsis into a one or two line premise. You don't have to do all this at once, but this is how you start building a premise and synopsis file of different lengths, which will be worth its weight in gold both during your writing process and the whole marketing process of the book.

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Thanks! After I hit "post" I realized that I didn't have enough detail in that sentence! I am going to start working on adding to it and if I also end up with a short synopsis as well as a premise, it will be a win-win! Thank you for taking the time to comment on this.

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