From Idea to Story: Introduction

Happy New Year! I hope 2024 dawned peacefully and enjoyable for all of you.

Many of you may have made a resolution that you were finally going to write that novel that you’ve been dreaming about for years. With that in mind, I decided to start this year’s blog with something a little different. So, over the next five weeks I will be presenting a series on taking your basic idea and turning it into a completed manuscript. The posts will cover the following:

Part 1: The idea: The Goldilocks approach, or how to test the idea to see if it is just right. What to do if the idea is too slight, or too overwhelming. Recognising the kind of ideas that seldom work as stories. Conducting some basic research. Starting to keep notes. Visualising the story.

Part 2: Getting started: The questions you must ask yourself before you begin and why they matter. Being a writer. Keeping a journal. Developing a routine. Addressing the practicalities.

Part 3: Fleshing the story out: Knowing your characters. Planning the conflict. Beginnings and endings, subplots, complications, and overall structure.

Part 4: The first draft: Are you a ‘pantser’ or a ‘plotter’? How to start building the story. Keeping a log of questions, issues to review, and scenes to develop. The importance of keeping on going once you start. Write notes to yourself about questions that arise, matters to research, and plot points that need to be altered or eliminated. Do you have chapters? If so, how long are they? Do you give your chapters titles?

Part 5: Revisions. Why they matter. Filling in the blanks and answering the questions you had in your first draft. Building up the story so it has rhythm and flow. Dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. Feedback. Finding a market.

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