Everything I Ever Needed to Know about Writing,

I learned from The Mummy

Part III

Let’s face it, we all want to write a really great novel--the kind of novel that lives on in people’s memory long after they put the book down, the kind of novel people love without ever really knowing what made it so good.

To the reader, a wonderful novel seems like magic. We sit in the audience, amazed by the tricks and illusions being executed on stage by the master magician. Yet, we have no notion of how those tricks are performed.

To the writer, what was once magical can become merely frustrating. We want our own work to appear as seamless and wondrous. But how?

One of the ways is to have a well-developed premise and theme. I’m sure there are people out these who can write magical novels without know squat about premise or theme. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them.

The good news is, if you’re not one of those people either, then understanding premise or theme can give your writing an extra edge. That magical glow.

It can tie together your prose and add resonance to your words. It may even make the difference between writing a novel people enjoy and writing a novel people love.

Premise

According to James Frey, in How to Write Damn Good Novel, a premise is “a statement of what happens to the characters as a result of the core conflict in the story.” In other words, it’s the lesson the audience or reader can learn by watching the movie or reading the book. It’s the point that’s proven by the events in the story. Most stories (certainly all the good ones) have a premise. For example: there’s no place like home (The Wizard of Oz), it’s a wonderful life (It’s a Wonderful Life), beauty is only skin deep (Beauty and the Beast), freedom is worth dying for (Braveheart).

You may have noticed in the examples above, that the really clever writers work the premise into the story so that it’s kind of hard to miss -- if you’re looking for it. Most people aren’t. The average reader will probably never know you have a premise in your book -- but they’ll enjoy it more.

The premise in The Mummy is that everybody gets what they deserve. The premise is illustrated most clearly through the character Benni. If you remember him from the movie, you’ll remember that Benni is a bit of a weasel. In fact, all through the movie people are saying things like “You’ll get yours Benni!” and “Nasty little fellows such as yourself always get their comeuppance.”

Just as everyone predicts, Benni does indeed get his. By the end of the movie his self-serving greed leaves him trapped in the treasure room of lost city of Hamonaptra. Though he’s surrounded by the gold and treasure he couldn’t leave behind, he’s also surrounded by flesh-eating scarabs. After betraying all of humanity, he has gotten exactly what he deserves.

What is true of Benni is equally true for all of the other characters. They too get what they deserve.

Anck-Su-Namun gets hers fairly early in the movie. Because she is the pharaoh’s mistress, her body is not her own. In the first scene of the movie, just before plunging a knife into her belly she says “My body is no longer his temple!” With her death, she gets what she never had in life--control over her own body.

Imhotep gets what he deserves as well. After spending over three thousand years as the undead, Evelyn removes the curse and O’Connell stabs him. Wounded and dying, he staggers backwards and falls into the well of souls--the same well Anck-Su-Namun’s soul rose out of when he was trying resurrect her. Ultimately, he has gotten what he deserved, death.

Of course, Evelyn and O’Connell get theirs too. Evelyn gets to use her intelligence to save the world. Thus she gets the adventure and the recognition she deserves. O’Connell, a self-proclaimed treasure seeker, gets the ultimate treasure--love.

Theme

Ah, theme. The bane of high school students everywhere.

For writers, theme is often both harder and easier than premise. A theme is woven through a story with more subtly than the premise. In Sound and Sense, Laurence Perrine defines theme as “the central idea of a literary work.”

Common themes, particularly in romance novels, are trust, self-acceptance, faith, and forgiveness. The easiest way to figure out your theme is to go back to your premise. Premise and theme are usually closely related.

A couple of quick examples: The premise of The Wizard of Oz is “There’s no place like home.” The theme is home. The premise of Braveheart is freedom is worth dying for. The theme is freedom.

If you’re having trouble with theme and premise, it may be easiest to decide on your theme first. Figure out what big issue you want to deal with in your book. Let’s say you want your book to be about Trust. Then decide what it is you want to say about Trust. Do you want to say that ‘Once trust is lost it can never be regained’? Or that ‘Without trust, love is meaningless’? Or maybe that ‘Love never really exists without trust’? What do your characters need to learn about Trust before they can have their happy ending?

The beauty of having a clearly defined theme and premise is that you’ll be able to use them to guide your story. Once you know what your theme is, you’ll want to make sure the every scene and character in the book reflects that theme. If you have a great scene that’s poignant and touching, but you’re not sure whether or not to keep it, ask yourself, “What doesn’t this scene say about my theme?” If the answer is “nothing” you’ll need to cut or rewrite the scene.

Which brings us to The Mummy. If the premise is that everybody gets what they deserve, then the theme is justice (Not in the Criminal Justice System sense of the word, but in the ‘the world is a fair and just place’ sense of the word.)

I’ve already talked about how all of the major characters get what they deserve, so you can probably see how they all reflect the story’s theme and premise. What you may not have noticed yet is how the writer uses even the minor characters to reflect the theme as well.

Remember the drunk British pilot? He’s a small character, on screen for mere minutes, but he serves an important function in the plot. O’Connell and the others are in Thebes and they need to cross the desert to Hamunaptra quickly (earlier in the movie it took them days to get there). A plane is the obvious solution to this plot problem, but plot demands a new character to fly it. It can’t be any of the other characters, because if they had access to a plane, they would have used it the first time they crossed the desert.

Enter the drunk British pilot. He shows up just in time to fly O’Connel and the others to Hamunaptra. But remember, he has to do more than that, otherwise, it would be lazy story telling.

Every character and scene must serve multiple purposes. So instead of just being the guy that flies them across the desert, his character must also illustrates the theme (justice) and the premise (everybody gets what they deserve). ‘But he’s a minor character’ you say. ‘How do we know what he deserves?’ Well, minor though he is he still has goal, motivation, and conflict. And the audience knows what his GMC is right from beginning. As soon as his character enters the story we learn that he’s last surviving member of the Royal Air Corp and he wishes he had died a glorious death along with the rest of his companions. So when he dies, we know he’s getting what he deserves--a glorious death.

Remember, in fiction, every scene, every character, every moment is precious. Your story needs to be tightly woven. You have to make every character work for his or her place in the story. So if you need a character to move the plot along, make sure you use that character for something else as well. These minor characters are perfect for illustrating your premise and theme.

In short, a well-defined premise and theme are like the wires the suspend the magician’s assistant three feet above the floor--the audience probably never sees them, but they’re crucial to the success of the trick.