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Revision as of 03:30, 21 May 2014

The premise of a work is the fundamental concept that drives the plot.

Most premises can be expressed very simply, and many films can be identified simply from a short sentence describing the premise. For example: A lonely boy is befriended by an alien; A small town is terrorized by a shark; A small boy sees dead people.

The premise is the most basic component of the plot itself and gives the story its purpose.

For example, the classic "a knight has to save a princess from a dragon" story, cliche as it is, has an even simpler premise: "Someone must be rescued from a threat".

In a slightly more complex sense, the plot of Harry Potter can be summed as "a boy discovers he's a wizard and all about the wizarding world", which is the premise of the entire series in a general sense. True, it has other plotlines that make up the story as a whole, but the very essence of the story can be boiled down to the aforementioned sentence.

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 Most premises can be expressed very simply, and many films can be identified simply from a short sentence describing the premise. For example: [[E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial|''A lonely boy is befriended by an alien'']]; [[Jaws|''A small town is terrorized by a shark'']]; [[The Sixth Sense|''A small boy sees dead people'']].
+The premise is the most basic component of the plot itself and gives the story its purpose.
+For example, the classic "a knight has to save a princess from a dragon" story, cliche as it is, has an even simpler premise: "Someone must be rescued from a threat".
+In a slightly more complex sense, the plot of [[Harry Potter]] can be summed as "a boy discovers he's a wizard and all about the wizarding world", which is the premise of the entire series in a general sense. True, it has other plotlines that make up the story as a whole, but the very essence of the story can be boiled down to the aforementioned sentence.
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