What Is My Best Idea?
If you’re anything like me, writing a book involves intense focus — not just in terms of creating space within your daily life for writing but also in fending off all of the other shiny and new ideas that come into your head while you’re in the weeds of creating those early drafts. As creative people, we are idea factories! We get inspired by a conversation we overhear at a restaurant, a walk through the park, or the recollection of a memory from years ago.
So, how do you sift through all of your ideas to choose which one you’re going to expand into a book? It needs to be a concept that has enough legs to pull readers through a 300+-page story and it needs to be something that will keep you engaged and excited through years of writing, rewriting, editing, and publishing.
A few years ago, when I recommitted to writing, I decided that I needed to focus on just one project. I thought this would make it easier to get momentum in my writing and it would end my cycle of abandoning half-finished projects. And then, as we were preparing to launch StoryCraft, Lindsay and I decided that we were going to go through our own Workbook and each document the process. This meant that I needed to start something new before I was done with my current project.
What I found was that it actually gave me a boost of productivity and excitement for my writing. I should have known that my ADHD brain likes flipping between multiple things and gets burnt out with too much repetition! So now, as the year begins, I want to add a third project to my work flow.
Every time I get an idea, I make a file for it in my Scrivener. Some of those have developed into piecemeal outlines while others are just a logline or a basic concept. There are current 47 different files. So, how do I choose which one should make it onto my current projects list? Or, should I forgo all of those and come up with something entirely new?
In the past, I admit that I fell into the trap of trying to pick the most “commercial” idea or trying to pick something that I felt I should be writing for one reason or another. But, looking back through my years of creating, the projects that I have had the most success with and those that have been the most enjoyable are those that I felt most authentically connected to.
This time around, the first thing I am asking myself is “What do I care about right now? What is occupying my thoughts and time?” While at one point I wanted to be that author who would be lauded with literary awards, I have come to realize that I will likely stick to things that are more light and escapist. It is what I gravitate towards in entertainment as a consumer and where I feel the most comfortable as a writer.
My current projects don’t lean too heavily into the escapist, so I think this is something I am craving right now. My love for fiction came with a love of fantasy. This past summer, I was obsessed with the new season of Bridgerton and really felt a pull to how they portrayed this fun, funny, and chaotic big family dynamic in this historical romance world. So…what if we added a fantasy element to that?
The second test for an idea is to develop it past the concept to see if it has legs to hold the entire plot of a book. Who is the protagonist? What do they care about and want? What are they willing to do to get it? Why is it so important? And what is standing in their way? In answering these questions, I can see if something is just the spark of an idea or if it initiates a plot and structure that I can start building with.
The last thing I do to test an idea is to build my developmental logline. This is the elevator pitch that tells readers exactly why the book is worth reading. For this, I try to put on my reader hat instead of my writer hat. If this was a book on the shelf, would I pay $20 or more to buy it? Would I want to invest 10 hours into reading it? Would I choose it over all of the other choices on my TBR?
For this idea, I still need to answer all of those questions. But “Bridgerton with supernatural powers” sounds like a fair place to start.
Lindsay and I will be exploring how to choose the right idea and develop a killer developmental logline in our free workshop on January 27 at 7pm EST. You can register here.
There will be an opportunity to share your idea for feedback as well as lots of tips for getting your 2025 book project started on the right foot!
Happy Writing
-Jess
