Behind the Scenes: The Premise

It doesn’t matter what medium you tell your story in, it lives and dies by the premise. An interesting premise elevates not only the setting, the plot and the characters, but also the themes of a story. The very first thing I came up with when thinking of this project was the premise.

Misplaced’s premise is simple: “There’s conflict between humans and fae. You are a changeling, smuggled into a human family. You grew up unaware of this, became a knight and finally the prince’s Champion - only then are you told the truth.”

This alone tells you exactly what kind of story this will be and which themes you can expect. From these few sentences alone, we can clearly see that at its core, Misplaced is about: identity, family, and duty. Who is the MC? Who are their people? Who do they have the duty to protect? Even without knowing any of the further plot, you know that by the end of the story, you’ll have your answers.

Some writers might simply focus on plot and characters and let the themes develop naturally, but I think that everything will be much more cohesive if you have the central themes in mind first. So, let’s take identity, family and duty and see how we can apply them to the other characters.

Vynn’s identity differs from the way they are perceived. On the outside, they are a Chev Hollowpeann, a noble and a knight, someone in a position of privilege and glory. But they want to be none of that. On the inside, they are Vynn, a musician who hates fighting, who’s sometimes selfish, sometimes a coward, but always willing to make an exception for the MC.

Vynn’s family has placed these expectations upon them. They have a difficult relationship with their parents because of it, but they love their siblings a lot. However, the one they really consider their family is the MC, because they believe there are bonds stronger than blood.

Vynn’s duty is officially to the kingdom, but they harbour no true allegiance to it at all. They don’t take their duty seriously at all and view it as a burden and a death sentence - something to fight against and to escape from.

Az’lean’s identity is that of the perfect, charming prince. That’s how others see him, and that’s how he knows he should be perceived. But there are cracks in this image, and underneath Az’Lean knows that there’s darkness within him. He wants revenge, he’s bloodthirsty, and he knows he has the capacity to be cruel. The question for him is whether he’ll ultimately give in or not.

Az’Lean’s family is equally as broken. His mother is dead, assassinated by the fae, and his father isn’t the man or king he used to be. Their relationship is bent out of shape, caused by tragedy and the guilt that follows. To avoid spoilers I’ll leave it at that.

Az’Lean’s duty is to his kingdom and to humanity. He shoulders his duty as prince gladly and with purpose. He puts it above all else, though there’s the possibility that it might end up clashing with his want for revenge. What’s best for the humans isn’t necessarily the same as what’s worst for the fae.

Maeve is very secure in her identity. She knows who she is and what she wants. She’s the representative of the fae, both in the story for the MC and outside of it for the reader, and that means a lot to her. Who she is is intrinsically tied to being fae and fighting for it. Out of everyone, Maeve is actually the one who is most honest with the MC. She doesn’t lie to herself, so she has no reason to lie to others.

Maeve’s family includes her six sisters as well as the grove in its entirety. But, she also views all of the fae as part of her family, which is why she cares a lot about the well-being of each and every one of them - including the MC, of course.

Maeve’s duty is to her people - the fae, as well as the Seelie Court. She takes her mission to introduce the MC to the ways of the fae and win them over very seriously. She feels it is an honour to be given such an important task and aims to fulfil it not only because it is her duty, but because she genuinely wants to make a change.

Thianne’s identity is that of Az’Lean’s most trusted advisor, and she builds a lot of herself around that. At the same time, she doesn’t care at all about how others see her. It’s not like with Maeve that she’s very secure in who she is, it’s more that she doesn’t really know who she is, and so far, she’s never had a reason to find out. (Though that might change in the future.)

Thianne doesn’t have a family. Much like her identity, it isn’t really something she’s concerned with. She views Az’Lean in a vaguely familial light, but that’s about it.

Thianne’s duty is to Az’Lean. The conflict between humans and fae doesn’t personally concern her, but she knows it’s important to Az’Lean, so she sides with him. However, her sense of duty hinges solely on the fact that she wants to support Az’Lean. Anything that isn’t directly in line with that doesn’t concern her.

You might be noticing a pattern here - Thianne is in many ways the outlier. By refusing to engage in the search for identity, family and duty, her role in the story is very much unique. Again, to avoid spoilers I’ll not say more on that.

Lester’s identity is very much intertwined with his status as a half-fae, an outsider on both sides of the conflict. In many ways, his position is similar to the MC’s. Being half-fae doesn’t mean being equally split between being human and being fae. He too has to figure out how he sees himself.

Lester’s family obviously consists of a human and a fae. It is also a massive spoiler, but I’m sure you can imagine why family might be important to him.

Lester’s duty is to himself. There’s no one else who will look out for him, so he has to do it himself. Deep down Lester also feels like it’s his duty to do something to mend the relationships between humans and fae. He is, after all, proof of their ability to love each other.

As you can see, the themes reflected in the premise of the story are also reflected in the other major characters. This way, we can look at them all from different angles and with different perspectives. Without me having to explain anything else, you can already see a lot of the trajectories of these characters and the plot in general. That’s what a premise is all about - creating possibilities in the reader’s mind. Not merely intriguing them, but filling their imagination with so many potential developments that they can’t help but look forward to seeing them.

Once you have a solid enough premise, the rest can spring from that.

“There’s conflict between humans and fae. You are a changeling, smuggled into a human family. You grew up unaware of this, became a knight and finally the prince’s Champion - only then are you told the truth.”

There’s more still contained in those three sentences that I haven’t even mentioned. There’s potential for betrayal and deceit, or for heart-breaking confessions. There’s conflict, there’s knighthood - you know there’s going to be danger and bloodshed, victory and triumph. You know there’s going to be politics and lore surrounding the fae. You get what I’m trying to say: if you have a solid premise, you have the necessary building blocks to construct everything else around it.

Now on to the question: how did I come up with this premise?

There were a few factors I had in mind when I started thinking about it.

1. I wanted a mediaeval fantasy setting with two different factions.
2. I wanted the MC to be caught in the middle and have to make choices regarding that. (This is interactive fiction, after all.)

From there, I took some inspiration from other works of fiction that also contain these two aspects. There’s tons of them. In the end, I chose humans and fae as the two factions purely because I was reading a book about celtic mythology at the time. It seemed natural to make the MC a changeling, allowing them to be both human and fae in a way. And with that, I had my premise ready to go.

The thing I figured out after that were the five ROs. This is a romance story, after all. I’ll probably talk more about them in the next part of “Behind the Scenes”, or if there is any other part of the story you want to know more context about, just let me know.