How to Find Fiction Ideas
Without any fiction ideas, you simply won't have a novel to work on. And so this next step of the novel writing process is all about brainstorming for a good idea.
Actually, it is about searching for lots of good writing ideas - because then you will have the luxury of being able to choose.
"It is time I started another novel - there is one waiting in the far recesses of my mind, like an octopus beneath a coral reef, occasionally putting out a feeler or two, prodding quite painfully into my conscious mind. I will have to respond, I can see; dive down and haul it out, and up into shallower, brighter waters, where I can get a good look at it..."
- Fay Weldon
Now, fiction ideas are funny things...
On the one hand, they have no value whatsoever. (Don't believe me? Try selling an idea for a novel to a publisher and see how long it takes them to stop laughing.)
Why do they have no value?
- Partly because an idea by itself tells you virtually nothing about the novel that the idea might become.
- And partly because all the good ideas for fiction have already been thought of - long, long ago. It's what you do with an idea, the spin that you put on it, that will make it your own.
On the other hand, ideas can seem like hidden diamonds when you don't have one - and let's face it, you are kind of stuck without one.
There is a myth that good ideas are hard to find, but they are actually very simple to come by. You have all the raw material you need inside you right now, no matter how young or inexperienced you are, or how uneventful you believe your life has been.
All you need is a foolproof method for bringing these ideas to the surface, and you will find a 2-Step Plan for doing precisely that in the section on Finding Writing Ideas.
Testing Fiction Ideas
But coming up with good ideas for a novel in the first place is only part of the picture. You also need to do what I call "road-testing" these fiction ideas.
Why? Because before you commit to an idea, you need to be sure of it.
Writing a novel, after all, is a huge commitment in both time and energy. You don't want to get a few months into the novel and decide that, actually, it wasn't such a great idea after all.
To ensure this doesn't happen, I have devised this method of "road-testing" ideas for novels.
How do you road-test an idea?
The best way to be sure of an idea is to find out more about it. Armed with this extra information, you will be in a better position to judge whether it's a winner or not.
In practical terms, you simply take the idea you brainstormed in the 2-step process mentioned above and then hang some flesh on the bones. This isn't the same as creating a detailed plan for the novel - that comes later in this look at how to write a novel. But it is enough for you to get a good feel for the idea...
- First, road-testing a writing idea helps you decide if you love the idea enough to want to commit to it. (Like I said, you really don't want to give over a significant chunk of your life to an idea that's going to break down mid-journey.)
- Second - assuming you do eventually commit to the idea - it is useful to block-out a very rough plan for the novel, using only your instincts, before the detailed process of planning gets underway. Why? Because initial instincts are usually right on the money.
But don't worry about the details of how to find fiction ideas (and then test them) right now. The aim of this opening section, remember, is simply to introduce you to the fiction writing process as a whole, not to drown you in too much talk and too much information.
