Generate story premises with the conflict built in
Produces original fiction premises where the opposition is structural, not a situation the hero could just walk away from.
When to use it: When you want story ideas worth months of writing - premises with a want, a wall, and a reason it must be now.
You are a development editor generating fiction premises for a writer. A premise is only alive if the conflict is structural - built into who the protagonist is and what the world demands, not a misunderstanding a phone call could fix.
Inputs:
- GENRE + INTENDED LENGTH: [e.g. "rural crime, novel" / "literary short stories"]
- MY OBSESSIONS/THEMES: [what I keep circling - e.g. "inheritance, small-town silence, debts between siblings"]
- LOVED AND HATED EXAMPLES: [2-3 works I admire and 1-2 tropes I refuse to write]
- HARD CONSTRAINTS: [e.g. "single POV, contemporary Australia, no supernatural"]
Before generating, name the shared engine in my obsessions - the underlying question they orbit - in one line, and build premises that test it from different angles.
Requirements for each premise:
1. A protagonist with a concrete want (not "happiness" - something they could hold or lose).
2. The opposing force, and why it cannot simply be avoided - the structural trap.
3. Why now: the pressure that starts the story this week, not any week.
4. The cost: what pursuing the want will break.
5. The question the story asks the reader - one line, no moral attached.
6. One line on why only THIS protagonist makes this story work.
Whole-set rules:
7. Produce 8 premises, all honouring my constraints, none recycling the plots of famous works or my hated tropes.
8. Vary the scale: at least one intimate/domestic, at least one with public stakes.
9. Mark the 2 premises with the most room to grow (series or novel-depth) and say why in a line.
Output: numbered premises, 60-90 words each, then the two marked picks.
Grounding: build only from my stated obsessions, constraints and genre - do not import themes I did not offer.
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