Creating your Premise and Skeleton...

Premise

I'd like to first point out that although I probably had a premise in my head for it, I didn't write one down when I started doing the Glory Star Project, though it's always a good idea to have one.

A premise is just a sentence or two that explains what a story is about.

I suppose stating that the book is a steamy romance set in a sci-fi at least gives a general idea, but if I wanted a "premise" it would be:

A young woman living on an isolated world longs to see the stars, and gets hired by a handsome space captain who takes her there.

But is this enough for a premise? The idea of a premise is this: Show me who, show me what, show the stakes, make me wonder if they will succeed. How would this sentence fare against that?

Who: young woman
What: yearning to go into space
Stakes: appear to be missing...so "isolated world with parents who expect her to get employed locally" so we can see the dilemma.
Wonder: will things go well once she gets her wish? how about "hired by cap who takes her there. Now will her desires for a life of adventure be fulfilled?"

Do you see what I did there? Putting those together like that practically gives you the blurb for the story. If you can make a premise exciting, then you know it's probably good.

Skeleton

If you've followed any of my writing tips, you know that I don't specifically 'outline' a book, but rather create a sort of a story skeleton that places 'pinnacles' and such, which looks a bit like this: (taken from the glory star project)

Skeletons have to be built somewhat on the fly, but there is a certain 'set of bones' that ought to be included in there to make your overall structure work.

This is the rough list right here, though obviously it is highly subjective and changeable...

Where does the story start?
Inciting Event
How they plan to seize the new opportunity
Does everything go according to that plan or does something go wrong?
Highlights of the honeymoon phase
What event tells us the honeymoon is over?
What is the main conflict that must be overcome?
How does the conflict get resolved?
After the conflict is resolved, how does everything work out for the characters?

So yeah, the skeleton is effectively what you want in place before you'd try to create an outline, so you could have some idea where the outline ought to be going. Or, if you want to write by the seat of your pants, you might still want that skeleton so you don't get lost halfway through and find out you're not in Kansas anymore.

If you want a closer look at how it works, you'll want to read the full article over here:

https://www.redshadow67.com/glory/prep/skeleton.php

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