This is Sally Dunn, from Mr. Enter's 'Growing Around' series.
Sally's drawn here in a stock pose I found amusing, esp. as I had a novelty pencil to go with. ^^
Though it's likely a mistake to do this, I'm going to presume most who're reading this already know who Mr. Enter is and have some idea about the Growing Around series.
Like me, Mr. Enter has autism. Also like me, Mr. Enter is resistant to criticism. Also like me, Mr. Enter has a fairly ambitious project (Growing Around) he hopes to do something with (mine is MT).
As I said, neither Enter nor myself like criticism, even if it's constructive. I'm a bit more receptive to it, though I feel I can see my weak points well enough without having my thoughts parroted to me by others (I know I can't draw---I poke that fact constantly). Where Enter's concerned, he doesn't seem to realize he has a problem: Growing Around hasn't been thought through very well. ^^
Because Enter will never read this (and because I don't offer criticism unasked-for), I'll just write a little on the subject of premise in storytelling.
Most stories, esp. those intended for children, have a premise or general rule, idea, object or the like, that requires its audience to take as granted. For example, say I write a Gene and Tasli comic in which the boys find or build a time machine. The fact that the time machine exists (and actually works) is the premise---the necessary, fantastic element the story depends on to work. In other words, I wouldn't need to draw a schematic of the time machine and/or explain the physics of it for (most) readers to accept it: it's what the boys do with the time machine that matters.
That said...
The time machine and the physics/implications of its use may be taken as given, unless or until its users do something that may require it to be explained. For example, if the boys somehow create a paradox or screw up the future/present somehow, the dynamics of how time travel works in my world may need to be explained, esp. if the boys endeavor to restore their timeline. It's important to do this so the readers (and myself) are aware of what can or cannot be done with the time machine---there must be some rules and/or logic/reason attached to it if the suspension of disbelief is to be maintained.
TL;DR: no, a writer doesn't need to explain their premise, at least not right away ...but if the story, the characters, or whathaveyou present a challenge to it, or if a situation takes place that may test the readers disbelief, the premise (either wholly or in part) will need to be explained.
One of my guidelines as an author is to always be ready with an answer---to have a full or mostly full understanding of how my world works. Even if a given idea, element, etc., will NEVER come up in the story, I'd still need to know the answer to it. Why? Believability. My world of MT is fairly complex, as it takes place across four very different countries. While there's no need to burden the story with all the laws and political minutiae among/between these, I would have to know them myself, for the purpose of consistency and/or avoiding plot holes (also, there's always that one reader who will ask a 'how-come' question, to which I'd need to have a real answer, such as, 'They have a law against that, which explains also why it wasn't done in an earlier scene, when doing so would've been convenient).
