The Hidden Step That Reveals What Your Story Is Really About

Validate your sci-fi or fantasy premise with checks for logic, tone, and market fit—so your novel’s promise truly holds up.

Validating Your Story Premise Before You Write

You’ve boiled your epic fantasy or sci-fi idea down to a short premise—but you still can’t tell if it’s any good. A well-written premise can read solidly enough but collapse under story weight if you never test what it’s really promising. That’s how writers lose both time and reader trust, ending up with a book that never quite lands.

In this article, I’ll show you the hidden step that reveals what your story is truly about—and whether it’s strong enough to sustain a full novel.

Why Writers Skip Validation—and Why You Shouldn’t

When I have authors who skim by this validation step in our coaching, it’s usually because they’re rightfully eager to reach the publication point. They’ve struggled and gotten stuck plenty, and now that they’re finally getting professional guidance, they don’t want to waste any more time before finishing their book.

That’s when I have to go full Ent on them—“Now, don’t be hasty.”

I know that pausing here actually saves time later. Taking a moment to test your premise now prevents the need to untangle messy drafts later, whether you’re in the planning or revision phase.

What You Need Before You Test

You don’t need every detail of your story figured out yet. And you don’t need to perfect your premise—which isn’t really possible. But you do need to be able to test it.

This step ensures that small cracks don’t become pitfalls later. It also confirms that your idea truly aligns with the kind of story you want to write.

This is the hidden step that reveals what kind of story you’re creating, what it’s promising readers, and whether it can hold up over the course of a full novel.

It’s how you validate whether your story idea has the strength and clarity to become a real, marketable novel.

Clarity in Your Premise

First, make sure your story idea is clear enough in its premise form—the same one I walked you through drafting in this video.

The test starts with one simple challenge: Were you able to explain your story in just two sentences?

If you couldn’t, that’s valuable information. It means your idea still needs clarity before it can carry a full novel. If your explanation requires extra justification, context, or side notes, you probably haven’t found the core of the story yet.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t there—it just means you need to cut through the noise to uncover what’s truly essential for this story to work. Find out what it’s really about.

Why Shorter Is Stronger

It may seem counterintuitive, but a longer, more detailed premise doesn’t prove it can sustain a novel—especially in speculative genres. Nor does it make it more useful for you as a guiding premise.

What you want is a premise that’s:

• Tight—focused on the core of the story
• Self-contained—clear without extra explanation
• Internally consistent—everything supports the main idea
• Easy to reference—something you could fit on a Post-It note

Don’t worry—I’ll walk you through how to get there.

The Creative Power Behind the Test

As I mentioned in this video, this validation process is actually a critical analytical step in the brain’s creative cycle. It engages your Executive Control Network (ECN)—the part of your brain that defines “problem parameters” for creative work.

By defining the boundaries of your story idea, you actually become more creative within them.

Having those parameters written clearly keeps your premise useful throughout your novel-length project, helping you stay focused and intentional.

Premise vs. Marketing Copy

Don’t confuse this short guiding premise with marketing copy, such as your book’s description or back cover blurb. While those may include more details, this premise serves a different purpose right now—it’s for you.

That said, its concise clarity will also make it incredibly useful later when you do write your marketing copy.

Your premise should also be readable and understandable by someone who isn’t you. That’s how you know it’s clear enough to guide your writing—and marketable enough to pitch later.

The Goal: Validate Before You Write

This premise validation process ensures your story idea is strong enough to carry a novel before you invest thousands of words. It’s also an effective diagnostic tool for troubleshooting a draft that’s not quite working yet.

So now, it’s time to analyze your premise’s promises in a full story idea validation test.

Check 1: Logical Cohesion and Urgency (Gaps and Pitfalls)

The core validation step is simply examining the elements—Who, What, Where, When, Why—to find obvious logical flaws or missing drivers in your premise.

Action Step

Analyze the components of your messy first-draft premise using the formula Character + Situation + Goal × Stakes. Check that your premise is:

• Self-contained
• Internally consistent
• Meaningful in relation to the protagonist’s goal or stakes

Diagnostic Question

Ask: “Does having to state it in just two sentences immediately expose questionable logic, pitfalls, and gaps that would ruin the story later? Does every element connect back to my protagonist’s core goal or stakes?”

Applying the Test

After walking through the steps to draft a guiding premise using a rough story idea I had, I arrived at this initial premise:

After the loss of her husband, callous Rose is put in command in a dragon-riding battalion during an enemy invasion. But if Rose can’t acknowledge her feelings, she’ll doom her own heart and the officer—and dragon—she never admitted she loved.

OK. Two sentences? Check. While not entirely foolproof, that almost always keeps things concise enough already.

Analyzing Logical Cohesion

Now for the logical cohesion part. Is it self-contained? Do we have everything we need to understand these two sentences together? Is it internally consistent? Does it stick to one topic and show the relationship of all the details to that topic?

I have a consistent character starring in both sentences, with everything else mentioned as it relates to her. That shows solid cohesion—not just in this premise, but in the story idea it represents.

Checking Each Element

• The loss of her husband: opens the concept of a lost relationship. The second sentence introduces a new potential love (the officer) and the threat of losing again. That thread holds together well.
• Her callousness: the first sentence introduces it, and the second explores what staying callous will cost her. That’s consistent.
• Command and consequence: she’s put in command, but it’s not entirely clear how that role relates to the emotional stakes. The word “doom” is also vague—it could use clarification to specify the impact of her choices.
• The dragon-riding battalion: fits well with the invasion and the emotional bond with the dragon, so that holds together logically.
• The officer: appears as the love interest but doesn’t yet seem integral to the goal or stakes. He could be more deeply tied to Rose’s motivation or choices.

Finding the Weak Links

At this stage, I might be tempted to tweak smaller details, but I need to pause and return to the main question: Does every element connect back to my protagonist’s core goal or stakes?

And here’s where I see the most obvious weakness. What is Rose’s core goal or motivation? I know she must acknowledge her feelings, but that’s not the goal itself—it’s part of her internal journey. Meanwhile, being “put in command” is her situation, not her goal. The invasion is the external pressure, but it doesn’t yet connect clearly to what she wants or what’s at stake.

Reconnecting Situation, Goal, and Stakes

In my brainstorming work using the Spellbook Outline Template, I established that Rose joins the battalion to distract herself from grief over her husband’s death. She’s being reckless, trying to feel alive riding dragons, while avoiding emotional attachment for fear of suffering loss again.

That’s a strong emotional motivation—but now I see a gap. I haven’t yet defined what’s truly at stake with the enemy invasion. What’s worth defending? Why does this battle matter to her beyond her personal avoidance of pain?

Tightening the Core Motivation

At the nebulous idea stage, “protecting their homeland” felt like enough, but it may not be compelling on its own. What if there’s a deeper connection—perhaps the enemy was responsible for her husband’s death? Or maybe she’s driven by a desire to prevent anyone else from suffering what she did. It doesn’t have to become a revenge story; it could simply be a fierce refusal to face more loss.

Key Insight: Strengthening the tie between the external conflict (the invasion) and the internal conflict (her grief and fear of love) will make the premise tighter, more meaningful, and more emotionally resonant.

If I can reframe the premise around that motivation—Rose’s need to stop the cycle of loss while risking her heart again—the story’s logic and stakes will align much more powerfully.

The Outcome: What Your Premise Reveals

So that’s how you’re going to look at your own premise—by checking for consistency and cohesion. Even if the elements seem well laid out, the premise can still expose weak points. If the stakes are too low, the goal is unclear, or the situation or timeline feels implausible, your premise is telling you something important: the story idea itself needs reconfiguring or recasting to strengthen its logic and overall importance.

Remember: A premise isn’t just about whether the story makes sense—it’s about whether it matters enough to sustain a full novel.

However, the entire “how” of your plot doesn’t have to be represented in the premise for it to serve its purpose. You’re not trying to summarize your book or list every beat. Instead, you’re using your premise as a lens to confirm the promises of the story overall—its genre, tone, age category, and the type of core content driver it represents.

So before you get too carried away refining every small detail of your premise, pause and look at the bigger picture.

Next Step: Let’s check what your premise is promising in a more market-aware fashion—because that promise is what tells readers (and you) what kind of story this truly is.

Check 2: Market Intent and Expectations (Clarity of Promise)

Your premise must clearly define the boundaries of the story so you know exactly what you’re promising—to your readers and to yourself as the author.

Action Step

Verify that your premise clearly delivers the correct:

• Genre
• Age category
• Tone
• Core conflict driver

These are the elements that shape your story’s market identity and ensure your creative direction aligns with what you actually want to write.

Diagnostic Question

Ask: “Based on these sentences alone, what kind of story am I promising?”

Can you identify the story’s content type—for example, a mystery, a siege, a quest, or a heist? Is the tone hopeful or dark? Is it YA or Adult? If a reader saw only this premise, would they instantly sense the genre, tone, and emotional flavor?

Testing the Premise

Let’s look at my sample premise again:

After the loss of her husband, callous Rose is put in command in a dragon-riding battalion during an enemy invasion. But if Rose can’t acknowledge her feelings, she’ll doom her own heart and the officer—and dragon—she never admitted she loved.

Genre Clarity

Fantasy is immediately evident from the mention of dragons and dragon-riding. Romance is also clearly central, since the entire emotional arc hinges on love and loss. Combine those two major genre signals and you get romantasy—fantasy + romance, balanced in roughly equal weight.

Age Category

I don’t specify Rose’s exact age, but the premise includes mature subject matter—the loss of a husband, professional leadership, and a romantic connection with a fellow officer. These all suggest Adult fiction rather than YA.

While YA stories often explore identity and first love, this premise deals with grief, long-term relationships, and emotional repression—themes far more aligned with Adult readers. The emotional stakes and life experience of the protagonist reinforce that fit.

Tone

Next, we check the tone by focusing on specific word choices and stakes.

• Words like “callous” and “doom her own heart” suggest heaviness and introspection.
• The enemy invasion and dragon battalion add external danger and high stakes.

Together, these imply a serious, psychological, and emotionally intense tone rather than light or whimsical adventure. The war backdrop and emotional cost point to something darker and more mature—possibly bordering on grim romantasy rather than cozy or comedic fantasy.

Tip: Tone is one of your most powerful market signals—it communicates not just what happens, but how it will feel to experience it.

Core Conflict Driver

Now, what kind of story structure and momentum does this premise promise?

This isn’t a mystery, quest, or heist. The “dragon-riding battalion” and “enemy invasion” establish a military and action-driven conflict. Meanwhile, the personal line—“if Rose can’t acknowledge her feelings…”—introduces a strong internal, emotional driver tied to romance and healing.

Together, these form a dual-core structure typical of military romantasy—a balance between outer war stakes and inner emotional transformation.

What the Premise Promises

Pulling it all together, this premise promises an:

• Adult novel
• in the Romantasy genre
• with a darker, emotionally serious tone
• and a military-driven external conflict

The protagonist must fight both an external enemy and her own emotional barriers—a classic mirror conflict that resonates in high-stakes romantasy storytelling.

Does It Match the Author’s Intent?

Yes. In my original ideation, I was consciously shaping this into a military romantasy. Rose is an adult protagonist, and the tone in my imagination was always bleak, sardonic, and emotionally complex. The story aims for a happily ever after as expected in romance—but it doesn’t need to feel like a rom-com to deliver that satisfaction.

What I hadn’t realized until this market check was how strongly the external war and internal emotional conflict mirror each other. That’s a useful revelation for refining not just the premise, but also the story itself—making sure both layers advance together toward the same emotional resolution.

The Outcome: Why Market Awareness Matters

This is why I want you to complete this market expectations check. Readers always approach a book expecting a certain feel. If the tone promised by your premise doesn’t match the content you deliver—say, a romantasy without any romantic tension—they’ll feel misled and dissatisfied.

Getting market-aware early in your process ensures you’re clear on what kinds of subject matter and emotional beats your story should focus on. These elements must align with the age category and genre conventions that your premise establishes, so you meet reader expectations on both conscious and subconscious levels.

Your guiding premise should serve as an instant red flag detector—alerting you when you start drifting off course or adding something that doesn’t belong.

Connecting the Dots from Your Validation Checks

Looking back at the notes from my validation process, I can see a clear pattern emerging. The most prominent issue isn’t in the tone or the genre—it’s in the connection between the external conflict and the stakes.

That discovery gives me a precise focus for refining both my premise and my story plan. Without strengthening that link, the story is unlikely to sustain its weight through a full novel. It would eventually stall or feel disconnected from the emotional core that gives it meaning.

Next Step: Refining Your Premise

Once you’ve gone through these same checks—and you know what your story is really about, what it promises, and whether it truly represents the story you want to tell—the next step is to refine your premise so that readers care deeply about what happens.

I’ll show you the most underrated novel premise fix to transform your story idea into one that makes readers care too—it’s in the article right here.

Selected Bibliography

• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6869990/
• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a...;
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36240723/
• https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/handbook-of-creativity/biological-bases-of-creativity/168E9A9890C346E71F2D9820AAE5A518
• https://www.nature.com/article...;
• psypost.org/neuroscience-sheds-light-on-brain-mechanisms-underlying-exceptional-creativity/

This field is quite theoretical. I'm extrapolating for authors what I can based on the findings we do have (and I'm certainly not a neuroscientist!). To explore a fuller background, you can see this article about a breadth of brain science sources (and their abstracts/descriptions) in my site's private resource library. Note: You'll need to register a free student account to access it: https://www.inkybookwyrm.com/blog/sources-on-the-science-of-story-craft-and-creativity

Categories: : creativity, novel drafting, novel planning, self-editing, writer mindset