Many writers have wondered whether the story they are writing is good enough. It’s a wise question to ask. Because if your idea is no good, and no one wants to read your book, what’s the point of writing it? You’ve got all these ideas swarming around, and they sound great in your head. But when you put words to page, you doubt if they will truly hold the weight of a whole novel—that is, a great novel. Because it’s not enough to have a good idea; it’s got to be great. So how can you know what to write about, an idea so great, it will make people pay money to read it?
I’m glad you’ve asked. But before we get to the essential elements of a great story, I’d like to outline some guiding principles. But be sure to read till the end, where I’ll share a key concept that will revolutionize the books you write.
First the principles: Write what you want to read and write what your passionate about. It’s kind of obvious. When choosing what to write about, you’ll want to write what interests you. And you’ll want to write the book you would want to read. If you like to read sci-fi, write sci-fi. You like to read historical fiction, write it. You like to read allegorical fantasy, write that. If you like something, chances are there are going to be others just like you who will like it too, and who may want to read your book. So write what your passionate about.
Best-selling author Randy Alcorn says it best:
Alright so you’re going to write what your passionate about, but also notice Alcorn mentions good ideas. You want to pick the best one, weeding out all the weak ideas in favor of the strong. Write them all down and pick your favorite, the one you are most passionate about and go for it. You could even ask others which one resonates most with them. You may find the more you talk about a story the more it will grow and expand. But if your excitement quickly dies, its probably time to move on and find a new idea that will capture your interest and an idea you can put your all into.
Choosing the best idea is key, but how do you know if your idea is good? What makes a great book? All great stories include the proper combination of these 5 elements:
Now I’ll cover these 5 crucial elements in more depth in later posts. But now I want to share that revolutionary concept I call Boiling Down: Brewing the Idea that Will Sell.
It’s time to boil that idea down to its core. You’ve got all these ideas swarming in your head, scenes and characters and plot twists, but take a moment and boil them down to a single idea. The core, the heart of your story. What your book is about.
Author Randy Ingermanson calls this The Snowflake Method, in his book by the same name. But I learned this concept from a book called Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Snyder writes for screenwriters, but the principle can be applied to fiction and even nonfiction. It’s a simple concept that will revolutionize how you look at the writing process and the stories you write. And here’s the first part: Boil your story down to one sentence. Screenwriters call this the logline, but for authors, it’s called the elevator pitch.
If you were to get into an elevator with a publisher, and you only had 30 seconds before he reaches his floor and is gone, what would you tell him about your story? You don’t have time ramble on about the awesome action scenes, the cast of characters, or the funny piece of dialogue you thought up for the final scene. You’ve got 30 seconds. So give him your pitch, your whole story in a nutshell.
This might be a foreign concept to some of you, and it might sound crazy, but hear me out. We can probably agree that some time in the course of your writing, you’ll have to explain what your book is about. That’s usually the first thing people ask me, when they find out I’m writing a book. And when that would happen, I didn’t know what to say. I had a generic idea of what I was writing, but I didn’t know what I was really writing. So I gave generic answers and couldn’t explain what my book was about. Most authors save this step for last. They write their whole book and then try to figure out exactly what they’ve written. But it’s backwards. It’s a bird that won’t fly.
You have to be able to market your book. And readers won’t buy a book, unless its crystal clear what they are buying. If you don’t know, how will they? Saving this step till the end is not a great idea.
So this is the second part of Blake Snyder’s revolutionizing concept: create your riveting logline, your pitch before you even begin to write. This method ensures you will have a great story before you spend the long hours writing it. Many authors fail for this fact, alone—because they don’t stop to consider what there book is, if it’s compelling, unique, and exceptional. They have a run of the mill idea and they go with it, expecting people to buy it because of the great plot twist 2/3 into the book (which, by the way, they haven’t told the reader about. We’re supposed to buy it just because.)
If you start with a great idea, and write that, staying true to the idea, you should have a great book when you write The End. You won’t be stuck trying to figure out what your book is after you’ve written it. What often happens is we write a story, get to the end, and realize the story is not actually that great. Now we’ve got to figure out what this story is and try to make it marketable when the idea itself never was marketable. If you’ve done your work ahead of time, you’ll save a lot of time and head ache.
This concept is great on multiple levels. It gives you as the author a clear vision of what you are writing even before you write page one, and it forces you to stick to that great story. It also will help you sell the idea to an editor or publisher and ultimately sell books to the consumer. But a third benefit of developing your pitch early on is you’ll be able to interact with people and keep them up to date with what you are writing. When someone you know hears you are writing a book, they usually will ask what’s it about? And if you’ve done the work upfront, you can tell them, in one breath what your book is in a nutshell.
And its not just nice to be able to have something good to tell them, it can also be a great help to you. When you tell people this is what your book is, study their reaction. If they say, “Oh,” and move on, you know either they don’t like to read, or your story might not be interesting or compelling enough. But if they say, “Wow,” and even want to know more, you’ve done it right. Their intrigued and maybe, they will buy it one day. But if they don’t like it, learn from that. Go back to your pitch and rewrite, edit until people start saying, “Wow I want to read that book!”
Now there’s some people who are scared of this concept. Why? They’re scared that if they tell people what their book is truly about, someone will steal their idea. In reality, that rarely happens. But besides that, every writer has their own unique perspective, their own methods, and will take the same story in different directions. Lastly, you don’t need to fear theft, because you’re not giving away the entire story. Your giving readers enough information to convince them to buy it. What is the unique element that sets your book apart? Tell us that, not in detail, but tell us, because that’s what will make people say, “Wow, I want to read that book.”
So boil down and brew the idea that will sell.
