Fractal Storyworlds Part 1: The Power of The Premise

And… I’m back. For the past week or so, I’ve been focusing my energies with laser-like intensity on wrapping up a new trading card game design project, which has entailed spending a lot of time in transit from one hotbed of activity to another. The upside of all this travel is that it’s given me more time on airplanes to ponder a concept that starting tickling my brain last month: that of fractal storyworlds.

Basic Blocks

The basic building block of this fractal structure is the storyworld’s premise. For our purposes, I’m declaring that a storyworld’s premise is defined by three aspects: its characters, its conflict, and its setting.

In more practical terms, when creating our premise, we need to ask ourselves (a) who the characters are, (b) what do they do, (b) and in what environment do they do it?

Obligatory Examples

“Sounds good in the theory,” you say. “But does this actually work?” And that’s my cue to roll out some examples of premises found in the wild:

Star Trek
Characters: Noble space explorers
Conflict: Discover new worlds
Setting: Throughout the galaxy of the 23rd century

Accursed*
Characters: Monstrous Heroes
Conflict: Fight for redemption
Setting: In a dark fantasy land overrun by the forces of evil.

Game of Thrones
Characters: Feuding nobles
Conflict: Fight for power
Setting: In a low fantasy world where magic and monsters are reappearing.

Deadlands
Characters: Brave Heroes
Conflict: Confront horrors
Setting: In a supernatural version of the Wild West

*This almost feels like cheating, since “Monstrous heroes fight for redemption” is right in the tagline.

And Then…?

So we’ve got our storyworld’s premise. Now what? Now… we wait for the next post, when I introduce a new concept: nodes.