[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]
Film Courage: What is a premise and why is it important in writing?
Writer/Script Doctor/Teacher Cody Smart: I think the premise is the idea you’re trying to tell in that point of view that you have because ideas can be repeated so many times, but it’s your take on that material. Again we were talking about Juno earlier and that story has been told so many times (that girl who gets pregnant) but the premise of that was beyond that, it was this teenage girl that gets pregnant and has all of this family and she doesn’t want to have an abortion, she wants to give the baby up for adoption. That is their take and their point of view, they have a vision. The premise of your story is really what sets the basis but then it’s about how you develop that into a fleshed out story.
A lot of times when I’m consulting on scripts I can tell them Your premise is good, your story kind of falters, so you have a good setup of an idea. What you have here has legs or there’s a seat of an idea. Your premise is there, it’s just the way you approached it is not working because of different things. It can be the structure or the protagonist is not fleshed out enough so we’re not seeing an evolution or things like that but that premise is the first step that needs to be there, it’s your point of view on how you’re telling the story, you’re telling.
Film Courage: Why is it hard to find a new take in this day and age? Is it true that everything’s already been written?
I don’t think that absolutely everything has been written but so much has been written before. If you can find a new take on old material I think that makes it fresh. We’ve seen a lot of those things lately, for example Maleficent, that’s a new take. We hadn’t seen that story from the point of view of the villain. Obviously you can’t go write that if you don’t own the rights but it’s a good example of how a new take on something that’s been told so many times before can make the material feel completely fresh. This is common especially with television. Let’s say medical shows or lawyer shows, police shows, all of the procedurals, there’s so many that come out every single year and audiences like them. We all like to watch different medical, different lawyer and different police shows but it’s the new take that it’s going to make them unique. If you just write another medical show without a fresh take, then it won’t make it past the desk of anyone because there are a dozen like it, there’s so many out there, but (for example) if you go with…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
BIO:
Cody Smart is an independent writer and script doctor from Chile. She holds degrees in English Literature & Linguistics, Screenwriting, Development and Producing. She worked as a script analyst for Sony, she’s a judge for multiple script and film competitions, she’s written some award-winning shorts, she’s head of the coverage department at a script hosting site and she does a bi-monthly vlog with tips for Screenwriters for Story Data. She takes pride in helping writers take their work to the next level.
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