Think Out Your Topic Before You Write

Don't rush things.

I know, you want to get writing. You came up with this fantastic story idea in the middle of the canned food aisle and after rushing home, throwing the groceries away, you are ready to write. But no, don't start immediately.

But why?

At this point, your emotions are controlling your thoughts. You have not really thought through if the idea will even work. There is a chance that this story could end up being a royal pain in the donkey. Let's consider the following things you might want to spend some time thinking about BEFORE you start writing "It was a dark and stormy night..."

MARKETABLITY - While you might think this is a great story, remember that you are still selling a product. This means that you need to do a little bit of market research. If the current market is not looking for your type of storyline, this will be a complete waste of time. OK, maybe not a waste of time. You can certainly do this to exercise your brain, or you can do this in the hopes that the market will change, however, if you can save this time, it would certainly be a better use of time. 

Get online and look around. Are you seeing other stories that are similar? Are you seeing if there are things happening around the world that might show you that this story is something that your story will work out? Have you seen editors and agents posting with the hashtag #MSWL? If so, then you are good to go...

SO FAR... Keep going.

CHARACTERS - So what do you know about your character? Since they are going to be the center of your story, do you really have enough to work with? Think about it this way. If this is a romance, then these characters have to be two people that have to like each other. We really don't want two characters that you are going to throw together that would totally hate each other. We want two characters that are going to be madly in love and end up in that happily ever after, right?

PLOT - Now we're going to talk about the darn story. Since you plan to write a novel and not a small short story, you have to know that there will be a storyline that will carry you through 50,000 words through 110,00 words. If you are now looking at a story that is going to be less than that, or you are thinking it is going to take you years to write, this might not be the right approach. Got it?

CONFLICT - Every story, and I mean every story, has to have something that needs to be "solved." In other words, there needs to be a purpose to the story. It might be that they have to figure something out in their life. It might be a major crisis between the hero and heroine or between two sisters or two brothers. It can't just be about the fact that Jack overheard Chrissy say something about a person being pregnant (yes, I just dated myself there, ugh... and by the way, that is a complication). If you don't have this, you don't have a story. 

These are just few things you have to figure out. In other words, yes, you have to do a little bit of plotting. Sorry...