STEP ONE: THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU WRITE

Before you can write your novel, you must first find an idea to write about, explore the idea to learn more about it, evaluate the idea to see whether it is truly worth your time and effort, and finally develop the idea in detail. I spent a month planning THE REFLECTING STONE in detail before starting it, and the work certainly paid off when it came time for Step Two, Writing the Novel.

1. Find an idea.

People get their ideas from all sort of places. You might start with a character, an event, a great beginning or a great ending, a place that seems full of atmosphere, a simple moment in time, the feeling a set of circumstances convey, etc., etc. The most important thing is you are looking for an idea that really moves you, that elicits an emotional response deep down inside. Something that seems to reach right into your very core. Somehow, intuitively, you will know that your story is about one thing on the surface, yet underneath that are powerful conflicts and compelling issues.

2. Explore the idea.

Think about your idea. Make a few notes if it helps, or just daydream about it. Can you think of additional ideas that might be part of your story? Can you see your main character, other important characters? Can you see where they are, what they are doing? Use your imagination! What sort of conflicts might arise in the course of the story? Where might it all begin? How might it all end? You don't have to catch every detail. Just brainstorm. Come up with possibilities. You are seeking to verify that this is a rich story idea, one with many possible twists and turns.

3. Evaluate the idea.

Once you have a clear sense of the possibilities, apply your critical judgment. You need to decide whether or not this story is worth looking into further. Do you know something about the things you might depict in the novel? Or could you learn enough through a reasonable amount of research? Would you be comfortable writing such scenes? Do you think you could do so convincingly? Is it YOUR story to tell? Does it fit in with your sense of who you are as a writer (see Finding Your Voice)? Is it a "flash in the pan" -- a great idea but not one that lends itself to a full-length novel? Is it a great idea but one that someone else should write?

The following are key criteria to use in making this decision about whether to abandon the idea, or hold onto it:

Is the story compelling?
Are there plenty of possibilities for the story?
Is this YOUR story to tell?
Is the story potentially marketable?
Do you really like it enough to spend a lot of time and effort working on it for many months to come?

4. Develop the idea.

If you decide not to abandon the idea, then the next step is to spend some time developing the idea in more detail. This is where you want to do a lot of thinking and make a lot of notes. You need to do this. Cutting corners and diving into the writing without doing this is very risky. If you don't plan enough in advance, you might write yourself into a corner and not know how to continue. You might discover that you don't really know your story as well as you thought you did and have no idea what is supposed to happen next. You might discover that the motivations are not adequate, the direction the story is headed in is contrived, etc., etc. You risk putting a lot of work into writing something only to throw all your hard work away in despair. Avoid false starts! Plan your novel! Subsequent postings will provide more insight into ways you can accomplish this. It's actually fun. And, you can always change your plan as you write. The fact that you have a plan will make a huge difference.