By:
S. Jae-Jones
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Where
do you get your ideas from? is a question writers commonly receive ,
and is probably one of the hardest ones to answer. Part of that is because the
Idea Generation process is different from writer to writer, and part of it is
because many of us simply don’t know. We might as well say we get our ideas
from IDËA, the Scandinavian idea superstore. Makes as much sense as anything
else we might say.
However,
speaking with other writers over the course of the past few months, I’ve
noticed that many of us don’t lack for ideas; we just don’t know
how to turn those ideas into novels. This is something I’ve
struggled with on a current work-in-progress: I’ve had ideas about this book
for years (eight years and eight completely rewritten drafts, to be precise),
but it wasn’t until a few months ago that I finally figured out how to wrangle
the Idea into an actual Novel.
When
I look back at all the books I’ve written (finished, that is), I tried to pick
apart why I managed to reach the end of this particular story
when that one was an abject failure. Because I like programs
and formulas and systems-building (even though I hate math), I managed to
distill Idea Generation into three components.
Characters,
Premise, Plot.
Sounds
pretty simple, of course. All books have these three components, but identifying these
components is sometimes harder than you think. (Or it was for me, anyway.) If
your novel has two of these three components, then the odds of you being
able to finish writing it are pretty high. However, if your novel has only one
of them, then you’ll probably find yourself floundering somewhere in the
dreaded “sagging middle”.
First,
some definitions:
. .
.
Read the full article HERE!
~*~
If you
missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are
again:
- How
Much Should
Authors Interact with Readers? | Official Author Website of Melissa McPhail http://ow.ly/JB7ls - What Scares You about Writing or Publishing? | Jami Gold, Paranormal Author http://ow.ly/JB7Dr
- Author v. Them: When to Revise for Critiquers http://ow.ly/JBZwD
- 5 Facts About Your Book’s Ranking on Amazon | Savvy Book Writers http://ow.ly/JC0ow
- Anne R. Allen's Blog: Should You "Send Out" that First Novel? 9 Things to Consider First http://ow.ly/JC0uP
- The Big Idea: How to Find the Right Idea to Turn into a Book http://ow.ly/JC0yl
- Fiction University: Getting the Best Response From Your Characters http://ow.ly/JC0J1
- Bang2Write | 33 Experts Share What They Want Next From Female Characters http://ow.ly/JC13n
- The Art of Writing is Rewriting: How To Be Your Own Editor SFWC15 | Or So It Seems… ™ http://ow.ly/JC184
- How Authors Can Use Listmania to Promote Their Book | Selling Books http://ow.ly/JC1fb
- Book Machine: Time to bury the ISBN? http://ow.ly/JCanc
- Women in publishing -- achievements and challenges | The Bookseller http://ow.ly/JCaw9
- Creating An Author Business Plan: Setting Your Goals - Marcy Kennedy http://ow.ly/JCaC5
Writability : How to Import Word Comments into Scrivener http://ow.ly/JCaH1- How To Publish A Book Bundle On Kindle http://ow.ly/JCaKv
- The Kind of Platform You Should Be Building http://ow.ly/JCaTX
- The Book Designer — Practical Advice to Help Self-Publishers Build Better Books http://ow.ly/JCaZj
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