Planning Your Story: Turning a Good Idea into a Novel
Kirsty Schumacher
8/20/20265 min read
Having an idea for a novel is exciting.
You might suddenly imagine a character, a situation, a setting, or a single scene that you can't stop thinking about. But there's an important question to ask before you start writing:
Is this an idea, or is this a story?
A novel is a significant commitment. Writing 80,000 words—or more—can take months or even years. Before you invest that time, it's worth testing your idea to see whether it has enough potential to carry you, and your readers, all the way to the end.
Start with the Right Questions
Before you begin planning chapters, ask yourself some difficult questions about your idea.
Will I still be interested in this after 80,000 words?
An idea can be exciting for a week without being substantial enough to sustain an entire novel.
Ask yourself whether you're genuinely curious about this story. Are there enough unanswered questions? Enough possibilities? Enough conflict?
You will spend a lot of time with this story, so make sure it's one you actually want to live with.
Is it interesting enough for someone else?
You might love an idea because it means something deeply personal to you. That's important—but it doesn't automatically mean that someone else will want to read it.
Try to look at your premise from a reader's perspective.
What makes someone want to pick up this book?
And, if you're hoping to publish traditionally, ask yourself whether the concept would be interesting to an editor or publisher.
Can I explain it in one or two sentences?
A strong premise is often surprisingly simple to explain.
If you need several paragraphs to explain what your book is about, you may not yet have identified the central story.
Try reducing your idea to its essential ingredients:
Who is the story about?
What happens to them?
What do they have to do about it?
You don't need to explain every subplot. Find the heart of the story.
Would You Buy Your Own Novel?
This might be one of the simplest—and most revealing—questions you can ask.
Imagine walking into a bookshop and seeing your novel on the shelf.
Would you pick it up?
Would the cover and title catch your attention? Would you read the blurb? Would you actually want to spend money on it?
If the answer is no, don't panic. It doesn't necessarily mean the idea is bad.
It might simply mean that you haven't found the most compelling version of the idea yet.
Can Your Characters Carry the Story?
A novel isn't just a sequence of events.
Something has to make us care about what happens.
Your characters therefore need enough personality, conflict, desire, fear, and complexity to sustain the story.
Ask yourself:
What does my protagonist want?
What is stopping them from getting it?
What are they afraid of?
What are they willing to risk?
How will they change?
What happens if they fail?
If your characters are interesting, they can generate story almost by themselves.
Is There an Audience for This Story?
It's worth being honest about readership.
You don't necessarily need to write something that appeals to everyone. In fact, trying to appeal to everyone can make a story feel generic.
Instead, ask:
Who would love this book?
Think about the readers who would be excited to find exactly this kind of story.
A small but passionate readership can be far more valuable than a vague attempt to appeal to everyone.
Why Are You the Person to Write It?
This doesn't mean you need to be an expert.
Perhaps you have personal experience with the subject. Perhaps you've spent years fascinated by it. Perhaps you have a particular perspective that other writers don't.
Or perhaps you simply can't stop thinking about the story.
Ask yourself:
Why am I drawn to this story?
Your answer might reveal something important about what makes your version of the story unique.
Give Your Story a Shape
Once you've tested your idea, it's time to start thinking about structure.
You don't need to know every chapter yet.
Start with three broad acts.
Act One: Get Your Character Up the Tree
First, put your character into a situation that requires action.
Something changes.
Something goes wrong.
Something is discovered.
A decision has to be made.
Your protagonist can't simply continue living exactly as they were before.
In other words:
Get your character up the tree.
Now they have a problem.
Act Two: Set the Tree on Fire
This is where things become more complicated.
Your character has to deal with the situation you've created.
They make decisions. They encounter obstacles. Things become increasingly difficult.
And, ideally, their attempts to solve the problem create new problems.
This is where your character comes to grips with the central conflict.
Or, to put it slightly more dramatically:
Set the tree on fire.
Don't let your protagonist simply climb down.
Make them work for it.
Act Three: Get Your Character Down
Eventually, the story needs to resolve.
Your character has to confront the central problem and deal with its consequences.
Perhaps they succeed.
Perhaps they fail.
Perhaps they achieve what they wanted but discover that they wanted the wrong thing all along.
Whatever happens, the events of the story should lead somewhere.
And most importantly, your protagonist should not be exactly the same person they were at the beginning.
The tree has changed them.
Now Make Your Idea Bigger
Here's a fun exercise for developing a premise.
Start with your story in one sentence.
Don't worry about making it perfect. Just get the basic idea down.
Then rewrite it.
And make it bigger.
Then rewrite it again.
And make it even more dramatic.
Keep supersizing the story.
For example:
A woman discovers a strange letter in her mailbox.
Interesting, perhaps—but let's push it.
A woman discovers a letter in her mailbox written by someone who claims to be her future self.
Now let's make it bigger.
A woman receives a letter from her future self warning her that someone she loves will die in seven days.
Bigger again.
A woman receives a letter from her future self warning her that someone she loves will die in seven days—and that she is the person who will kill them.
Now we have a very different story.
The purpose of this exercise isn't necessarily to choose the most ridiculous version.
It's to discover how far your premise can go.
Sometimes the most dramatic version reveals the most interesting version.
You can always scale the story back later.
Plan Enough to Begin
Planning doesn't mean knowing everything that will happen.
You don't need a chapter-by-chapter outline before you write your first sentence.
You simply need enough of a foundation to give yourself somewhere to go.
Know:
Who is your character?
What happens to them?
What do they want?
What's stopping them?
What happens if they fail?
And, broadly, where does the story end?
Then start writing.
Your plan is not a prison.
As you write, you may discover better ideas, more interesting characters, or a completely different direction for the story.
That's okay.
A good plan gives you somewhere to begin.
It doesn't dictate where you have to finish.
The Story Before the Story
Before you write 80,000 words, spend some time making sure those 80,000 words are worth writing.
Test your premise.
Question your characters.
Find your conflict.
Reduce your story to a sentence.
Then supersize it.
And finally, give your character a tree.
Because once you've got them up there, your job as a writer is simple:
Make it very, very difficult for them to get down.
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