Premise vs. Structure vs. Text
So this year I was on the pre-convention Seminar before Fourth Street. Despite covering professionalism, voice, and critique in 3 separate discussions, we barely got through half of the things we had notes for, which is about par for the course. So here are some notes on one of the topics we didn't get to.
Premise problems vs. structure problems vs. text problems
Critiques often focus on specific textual issues, because specific textual issues can be fixed. "I didn't get this bit." "This line made me hate the character." Etc.
Sometimes, of course, a specific textual issue is a symptom of a structural problem. You didn't get that bit because the author didn't make a key bit of information available earlier, or the line is fine but it needs to be delivered earlier, or later, for the reader's emotional response to it to work.
Other problems are deeper-rooted, though. Sometimes, a story's premise is the problem.
You can see examples of this in the lists of premises certain editors don't (or didn't) want to see. It's worth noting that there are several kinds of issues on display, in addition to the ones that are clearly personal taste:
1) The premise is reductionist, tedious, preachy, and/or morally reprehensible.
Revenge fantasies against your ex join "All members of group X are evil!" or "If only we did Y, everything would be great!" in this category. Even if X actually is evil, or Y would make everything great (doubtful), premises of this kind make for bad and boring stories.
2) The premise is one we've seen a hundred times before, sans interesting variation.
You are the chosen one! Our bold heroes will vanquish the evil hordes of [whoever]! What if reality was actually virtual reality? And their names were Adam and Eve! You get the idea.
3) The premise doesn't go anywhere.
So there was a cool thing, and then the author described the cool thing, and it was cool, and then the story ended without anything happening or the reader being given any reason to care. Or maybe the author just reversed one of the premises from 2) and waited for applause. Either way: Bleh.
4) The premise doesn't play to your medium's strengths.
Does your idea require you to describe every strike and shift of each character's balance in a 50-page martial arts fight? Are you trying to cram novel pacing into a short story, or vice versa? Does your central romance lean on the reader thinking of specific (hot) actors reading your lines and being broody on a nonexistent screen? Maybe you should reconsider that.
In the end, though, all of these issues (and nearly any other premise problem you can come up with) are just individual manifestations of a single meta-issue, which is the following:
Your story's premise can limit how good your story can ever be, and how hard it will be to make it better than the baseline for that kind of story.
When a story's premise is flawed, past a certain point, no amount of structural and textual fiddling is going to improve it. You may be able to make it into a competent piece-- but there are lots of competent stories out there. If you want to write good stories, you may need to rethink what your stories are about in order to make them work. Or you may need to abandon them and write something new.
I understand that it can be crazy difficult to tell people the latter, or be told it in a workshop setting. But seriously. Some stories are not worth revising. Some stories will never be good.
A key skill as a writer is being able to identify those story premises so you don't waste your time trying to write them in the first place, or failing that, being able to hear your colleagues when they tell you a particular piece is unworthy of further time and energy.
--
(A note regarding "There are no bad ideas". First, see Left Behind, The Turner Diaries, etc. Second, what people usually mean when they make this claim is that if you rethink and add complexity and depth to your initial premise, you can usually turn it into an idea that a reasonable story can be built on.
This is true.
Note that it doesn't imply the original premise was actually any good.)
Premise problems vs. structure problems vs. text problems
Critiques often focus on specific textual issues, because specific textual issues can be fixed. "I didn't get this bit." "This line made me hate the character." Etc.
Sometimes, of course, a specific textual issue is a symptom of a structural problem. You didn't get that bit because the author didn't make a key bit of information available earlier, or the line is fine but it needs to be delivered earlier, or later, for the reader's emotional response to it to work.
Other problems are deeper-rooted, though. Sometimes, a story's premise is the problem.
You can see examples of this in the lists of premises certain editors don't (or didn't) want to see. It's worth noting that there are several kinds of issues on display, in addition to the ones that are clearly personal taste:
1) The premise is reductionist, tedious, preachy, and/or morally reprehensible.
Revenge fantasies against your ex join "All members of group X are evil!" or "If only we did Y, everything would be great!" in this category. Even if X actually is evil, or Y would make everything great (doubtful), premises of this kind make for bad and boring stories.
2) The premise is one we've seen a hundred times before, sans interesting variation.
You are the chosen one! Our bold heroes will vanquish the evil hordes of [whoever]! What if reality was actually virtual reality? And their names were Adam and Eve! You get the idea.
3) The premise doesn't go anywhere.
So there was a cool thing, and then the author described the cool thing, and it was cool, and then the story ended without anything happening or the reader being given any reason to care. Or maybe the author just reversed one of the premises from 2) and waited for applause. Either way: Bleh.
4) The premise doesn't play to your medium's strengths.
Does your idea require you to describe every strike and shift of each character's balance in a 50-page martial arts fight? Are you trying to cram novel pacing into a short story, or vice versa? Does your central romance lean on the reader thinking of specific (hot) actors reading your lines and being broody on a nonexistent screen? Maybe you should reconsider that.
In the end, though, all of these issues (and nearly any other premise problem you can come up with) are just individual manifestations of a single meta-issue, which is the following:
Your story's premise can limit how good your story can ever be, and how hard it will be to make it better than the baseline for that kind of story.
When a story's premise is flawed, past a certain point, no amount of structural and textual fiddling is going to improve it. You may be able to make it into a competent piece-- but there are lots of competent stories out there. If you want to write good stories, you may need to rethink what your stories are about in order to make them work. Or you may need to abandon them and write something new.
I understand that it can be crazy difficult to tell people the latter, or be told it in a workshop setting. But seriously. Some stories are not worth revising. Some stories will never be good.
A key skill as a writer is being able to identify those story premises so you don't waste your time trying to write them in the first place, or failing that, being able to hear your colleagues when they tell you a particular piece is unworthy of further time and energy.
--
(A note regarding "There are no bad ideas". First, see Left Behind, The Turner Diaries, etc. Second, what people usually mean when they make this claim is that if you rethink and add complexity and depth to your initial premise, you can usually turn it into an idea that a reasonable story can be built on.
This is true.
Note that it doesn't imply the original premise was actually any good.)