William Bernhardt - Powerful Premise: Writing the Irresistible

Powerful Premise

Writing theIrresistible

William Bernhardt

The Red Sneaker WriterSeries

Other Books by WilliamBernhardt

The Red Sneaker WriterSeries

Story Structure: The Key toSuccessful Fiction

Creating Character: Bringing YourStory to Life

Perfect Plotting: Charting theHeros Journey

Dynamic Dialogue: Letting YourStory Speak

Powerful Premise: Writing theIrresistible

Sizzling Style: Every WordMatters

Excellent Editing: The WritingProcess

The Ben Kincaid Series

Primary Justice

Blind Justice

Deadly Justice

Perfect Justice

Cruel Justice

Naked Justice

Extreme Justice

Dark Justice

Silent Justice

Murder One

Criminal Intent

Hate Crime

Death Row

Capitol Murder

Capitol Threat

Capitol Conspiracy

Capitol Offense

Capitol Betrayal

Justice Returns

Other Novels

The Code of Buddyhood

Dark Eye

The Midnight BeforeChristmas

Final Round

Double Jeopardy

Strip Search

Nemesis: The Final Case of EliotNess

The Game Master

Challengers of theAbyss

Poetry

The White Bird

The Oceans Edge

For Young Readers

Equal Justice: The Courage of AdaLois Sipuel (biography)

Princess Alice and the DreadfulDragon (illustrated by Kerry McGhee)

The Black Sentry

Shine

Edited by WilliamBernhardt

Legal Briefs

Natural Suspect

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the Red Sneaker Writers Bookseries. If youve read other Red Sneaker publications or attendedRed Sneaker events, you can skip to Chapter One. If youre new, letme take a moment to explain.

Ive been telling stories for many years,doing almost every kind of writing imaginable. Ive been speakingat workshops and conferences almost as long. Every time I stepbehind the podium I see the same tableau staring back at me: longrows of talented people, most of whom have attended many of theseevents but are still frustrated by the fact that they havent soldany books. Yes, the market is tough and agents are hard to find andself-publishing can be frustrating. But when aspiring writers workhard, put it out there, but still dont succeedtheres usually areason. Too often enormous potential is lost due to a lack offundamental knowledge. Sometimes a little guidance is all thatstands between an unknown writer and a satisfying writingcareer.

The conference-lecture format is not alwaysthe most conducive to writing instruction. And sometimes theteaching Ive heard offered is dubious. Too often speakers seemmore interested in appearing literary than in providing usefulinformation. Sometimes I feel presenters do more to obfuscate thesubject than to explain it, that they want to make writing asmysterious and incomprehensible as possible, either because theythink that makes them sound profound or because they dontunderstand the subject well themselves. How is that going to helpanyone?

After giving this some thought, I formulatedthe Red Sneaker Writing Center. Why Red Sneakers? Because I love myred sneakers. Theyre practical, flexible, sturdyand bursting withstyle and flair. In other words, exactly what writing instructionshould be. Practical, flexible, resilient, dynamic, and designed tounleash the creative spirit, to give the imagination a platform forcreating wondrous work.

I held the first Red Sneaker Writersconference in 2005. I invited the best speakers I knew, not onlypeople who had published many books but people who could teach.Then I launched my small-group seminarsfive intensive days workingwith a handful of aspiring writers. This gave me the opportunity toread, edit, and work one-on-one with people so I could target theirneeds and make sure they got what would help them most. Thisapproach worked extremely well and Im proud to say a substantialnumber of writers have graduated from my seminars and placed workwith major publishers. But I realized not everyone could attendthese seminars. How could I help those people?

This book, and the other books in thisseries, are designed to provide assistance to writers regardless oftheir location. The books are short, inexpensive, and targeted tospecific areas where a writer might want help.

Let me see if I can anticipate yourquestions:

Why are these books soshort? Because Ive expunged theunnecessary and the unhelpful. Ive pared it down to the essentialinformation, useful ideas that can improve the quality of yourwriting. Too many instructional books are padded with excerpts andrepetition to fill word counts required by book contracts. Thatsnot the Red Sneaker way.

Why are you writing severaldifferent books instead of one big book? Iencourage writers to commit to writing every day and to maintain aconsistent writing schedule, and sometimes reading about writingcan be an excuse for not writing. You can read the Red Sneakerbooks without losing much writing time. In fact, each can be readin a single afternoon. Take one day off from your writing. Read andmake notes in the margins. See if that doesnt trigger ideas forimproving your work.

I bet it will. And the next day, you can getback to your work.

You reference other books as examples, butyou rarely quote excerpts from books (other than yours). Why?

Two reasons. First, Im trying to keep thesebooks brief. I will cite a book as an example, and if you want tolook up a particular passage, its easy enough to do. You dontneed me to cut and paste it for you. Second, if I quote frommaterials currently under copyright protection, I have to pay afee, which means Id need to raise the price of the books. I dontwant to do that. I think you can grasp my points without readingcopyrighted excerpts. Too often, in my opinion, excessiveexcerpting in writing books is done to pad the page count.

Why does each chapter end withexercises?

The exercises are acompletely integrated and essential part of this book, designed tosimulate what happens in my small-group seminars. Samuel Johnsonwas correct when he wrote: Scribendodisces scribere . Meaning: You learn towrite by writing. I can gab on and on, but these principles wontbe concretized in your brain until you put them intopractice.

So get the full benefit from this book. Takethe time to complete the exercises. If you were in my seminar, thiswould be your homework. I wont be hovering over your shoulder whenyou read this bookbut you should do the exercises anyway.

What else does the Red Sneaker WritersCenter do?

I send out a freee-newsletter filled with writing advice, market analysis, and otheritems of interest. If you would like to be added to the mailinglist, then please visit: http://www.williambernhardt.com/red_sneaker_wc/. I host an annual writing conference with aspecific focus: providing the information you need to succeed. Ilead small-group seminars in various cities each year. Thenewsletter will provide dates and information about these programs.And there will be future books in this series.

Okay, enough of the warm-up act. Read thisbook. Then write your story. Follow your dreams. Never give up.

William Bernhardt

CHAPTER 1: DEFININGPREMISE

The first thing you have to consider whenwriting a novel is your story, and then your storyand then yourstory!

Ford Maddox Ford

First let me explain what I mean by premise.Premise is the fundamental idea or core concept that underpins yourstory. Its that stray thought that wandered into your head one daywhile you were in the shower, or walking the dog (because theabsence of outside noise allowed your subconscious to speak).Perhaps the idea seized you immediately, made you stop in yourtracks and think, Wow, that would make a terrific novel. And youwere likely right, because if the idea struck you as unique andworthy and exciting, it will likely strike someone else the sameway. But dont stop with that initial idea. See if you can expandit and make it even better.