So, You Have a Novel Idea...
But You Have NO IDEA What to Do With It
For a moment, I’d like for you to consider this idea: All your favorite books, songs, fictional characters, movies, TV shows, podcasts, every single one of them stemmed from a single idea.
A spark of creativity and then BANG! the entire universe—at the very least YOUR entire universe—was changed.
One of my favorite movies is Yesterday (2019), starring Himesh Patel and Lily James. Without giving away spoilers, Jack (Patel) recovers from an accident only to discover that what instigated his accident also caused the Beatles to not exist. Poof! No Fab Four. THE BEATLES. Not only were they gone, but they never were.
Now, imagine a world without Oz, Hogwarts, Madea, the Millennium Falcon, Thriller, Disney, The Golden Girls, [you fill in the blank]...
In case my point isn’t clear, a single idea can cause a butterfly effect, an avalanche of momentum that can entirely change the course of history. And YOUR idea for your next book could be one of them.
In Part 1 of this #NaNoWriMo series, I introduced you to NaNoWriMo* and offered you the first of many free tools to help you prepare to write your first draft. In case you missed it, you can read that post and download your free Novel Writing Checklist here.
In Part 2, I want to help you at the very first spark of a book idea.
So, you have a novel idea, but you have no idea what to do with it.
I have stacks of notebooks, folders, and shoeboxes with old order pads (from when I was a bartender and business was dead) FULL of story ideas. After decades of dreaming about being a novelist, jotting down ideas and then squirreling them away “for later,” I finally wrote my first book in 2013. In this article, I’m going to share how I did it...
1. Brainstorm Your Idea
The idea for The Decembers (out of print) came me 15 years before I finally self-published. It was New Year’s Eve of 1998, and a guy sat at my bar and told me a story about the friend he was meeting later that evening—at midnight, to be exact—at another bar in Chicago. His flight wasn’t leaving for another hour, so he decided to have a beer while he waited. Then, he shared his story: He and the friend had met on New Year’s Eve 20 years earlier at a Houlihan’s bar in Chicago. The two started chatting about baseball and from that initial conversation, a friendship grew. Since then, every year, no matter where the two friends were in their lives, they always flew back to that same Chicago Houlihan’s and spent the evening catching up.
That guy’s story sparked an idea for my own. What if a New Year’s Eve meet cute turns into a friendship that, over time, blossoms into a romance? I thought.
From that night on, the thought stayed with me until one day I decided to brainstorm my idea into notes. From those notes, I wrote the characters, constructed a storyline, structured an outline, and from that outline a book of more than 200 thousand words formed.
Idea to publishing, that first book took me 15 years to complete. However, from brainstorming the idea to publishing, it only took me a little more than a year.
Is a potential world-altering story worth a year of your life? It is to me!
2. Organize Your Notes
Over the years, brainstorming my book ideas evolved from notepads and folders to saving notes on an app in my phone and dictating voice notes while I’m on my daily walks. Once I have enough material to get going, I decide on a name for the project—this name doesn’t have to be the final title—and then I set up a Gmail account specifically for emailing notes to sort through later. For example, when my idea for A Bright Light came to me, I created an email address with “ChristmasStories” as part of the handle. The title came much later, and I was able to use that account to collect notes on The Missing Lamb and an unfinished NaNoWriMo project.
When my book ideas are baked out enough that I can visualize characters, a fictional world, and a storyline, I start searching for visual inspiration.
3. Conduct Inspirational Research
Inspirational research, as I call it, is just as much fun as polishing the second draft. I LOVE THESE TWO PHASES. In fact, I wouldn’t have ever finished the first book if I didn’t enjoy the initial research process, so finding a method that works best for you, and that you enjoy doing, is of utmost importance.
Methods that work for me are:
I read LOTS of books about the subject of my idea.
I also watch movies and TV shows that take place during the same period or part of the world as my idea.
Using Google Maps to travel virtually through cities in which my stories take place. Many of these cities I still haven’t traveled in-person! But I was able to write them well by learning through virtual means.
Consulting my tarot cards for character inspiration. The cards, especially the Courts, work excellently as character avatars. They serve as placeholders for puzzling together a storyline, which I’m writing about in a few weeks, so stay tuned!
What’s your novel idea?
Do you have an idea for a story? Have you ever written a book before? What best practices have helped you along your writing journey? Share in the comments! I’m always eager to learn new methods for organizing my ideas and getting my books across the finish line.
About Mandy
Amanda "Mandy" Hughes is an author and instructional designer who uses the tarot to inspire storytelling. Her book Mystic Storyteller: A Writer’s Guide to Using the Tarot for Creative Inspiration and companion tarot deck are coming soon! She also writes fiction under pen names A. Lee Hughes and Mandy Lee. Mandy lives in Georgia with her husband and four sons, two of whom are furrier than the others (but not by much). Visit her website at www.haintbluecreative.com and follow her on Instagram @HaintBlueCreative.
This is wonderful. Let me grab yet ANOTHER notebook and start really putting something together. You articles have me feeling really inspired.