Planning the Novel.

Hundreds of thousands of people all over the globe write novels to tell stories of fantastic adventure, terrifying serial killers or a breathless romance. Many people who write novels (Novelists) will tell you that it's done one word at a time until the story is told. For others it requires a stringent regiment of daily goals and an overall plan.

A germ of an idea: This one time, at boot camp. . .

Sitting in your cubicle one day you have a sudden flash of inspiration, what if your boss came up to you on the streets and offered you a personal job 'on the side' for $25,000 cash with no questions asked? Would you take it? What would the job be? Is he working for the mafia? Sounds like a pretty fantastic story, it could be really involved thriller. . . Or maybe some kind of straight forward action yarn where you're running for your life while trying to dodge the authorities, complete your 'odd job' and get ready to go back to work on Monday.

This idea could be laid out in a hundred different ways with just as many outcomes, but we're only going to be able to choose one. We're going to have to revise it to a sharp point that we'll use to stab straight through to the heart of our audiences, even if it's 'just' friends.

Before anything else, write down your idea if you've already got one and think about it for a moment. Is the idea set for a particular genre? Could it be a science fiction story? Maybe a thriller? Not that you can't mix genre's but right now focusing on one particular genre will help mold the idea a little more. Knowing exactly which genre you want your story to be set in will help you determine the overall tone the story is told in, roughly how long it might be and will also help you figure out what's already been done.

Roughing it: The initial outline.

After deciding on the story idea and genre, take a couple scraps of paper and decide what you think the story should be about, how should it flow? This is more of a brainstorming exercise to get you loosened up and ready for the major work of planning the first draft. An example of a rough outline might be something like:

Boss offers odd job for $25k.

Chased by mafia guys while running package to safe house.