/theme-craft

The Controlling Idea

Robert McKee's Story frames a story's theme as a controlling idea: a value plus its cause, stated as one sentence — e.g. "Justice triumphs because the hero is smarter than the criminals" (paraphrased concept, not McKee's words). Theme words ("justice", "redemption") can't guide a scene decision; a controlling idea can, because it names both the value at stake and what causes it to triumph or fail.

The sentence

A controlling idea has this shape:

{Value} {triumphs | fails} because {cause}.

• Value — the story's core moral value, phrased as a continuum with a positive and negative pole: justice/injustice, love/hate, courage/cowardice, honesty/deception.
• Triumphs or fails — the ending's verdict. A positive ending argues the value triumphs; a negative ending argues it fails (or a counter-value wins).
• Cause — the protagonist's action or quality that produces the verdict. This is what makes the idea usable: every scene can be checked against whether the protagonist is moving toward or away from the cause.

Examples (original constructions in the form, not quotations):

• "Mercy triumphs over vengeance because the protagonist refuses the killing blow."
• "Honesty fails because the protagonist protects the lie that keeps them safe."

The counter-premise

Record the counter-premise alongside the premise: the antagonist's (or the world's) opposing claim, in the same value+cause form:

• Counter-premise: "Vengeance triumphs because the world punishes mercy."

The counter-premise is what the antagonist believes and acts on (see antagonist-design.md). The story's climax stages the two premises against each other and delivers a verdict — that verdict is the controlling idea's "triumphs/fails" pole.

Working-premise workflow

Craft opinion is genuinely split on planning theme up front (King warns against starting from theme; McKee and Truby plan it). The repo's stance: use a working premise, revisable.

1. Plan: at story-init (or when picking up an existing project), draft a working premise and counter-premise. Store in story.md frontmatter:

   premise: "{Value} triumphs because {cause}."
   counter-premise: "{Opposing value} triumphs because {opposing cause}."

   If the user resists planning theme, record premise: tbd-discovery and let the revision audit (see theme-audit.md) build it from what the draft actually argues.

2. Use during drafting: the premise answers scene-level questions — "which choice tests the value?" A scene that never touches the value continuum is structurally decorative; flag it for the scene-craft sequel (the sequel is where the character's lie confronts the value).

3. Audit in revision: run theme-audit.md. The working premise is not sacred — if the draft argues something truer, rewrite the premise to match the draft, then revise the ending so it delivers the verdict cleanly.

Premise quality check

• One sentence, with a named value and a named cause.
• The cause is something the protagonist does, not something that happens to them.
• The counter-premise is a genuine belief someone could hold (test: can you imagine the antagonist defending it?).
• The climax can plausibly stage both premises and pick a winner.