Section 2 of 13
The Loose Story Idea
Every novel starts as a loose idea. This is where you put yours into words — not to lock it in, but so you have something real to build on.
Your story, in your own words
However much you've got — a paragraph, a pile of ideas, or just a feeling. Already know your story? Tell it right here. Want questions to draw it out of you? Open the prompts below — every one is optional.
Prefer prompts? Open the guided questions
Talk through your idea
Answer conversationally, like you're telling a friend about the book. Full sentences, fragments, rambling — all fine.
The heart of it — the thing that made you want to write this book in the first place.
While they're reading it, and when they close the book.
Who falls in love, and what's the situation between them? For example: exes getting a second chance, best friends realizing there's more, rivals stuck working together, strangers thrown together by accident — whatever yours is, in your own words.
The relationship or struggle the whole book turns on — between people, or between a character and a force, a place, a secret, themselves. In your own words.
"Currently" is the key word — Major Character Builder may surprise you.
Naming what you don't know yet is one of the most useful things a writer can do.
Build your story overview
Now shape those thoughts into a short working overview. Fill in whichever pieces you know — a phrase or a sentence for each is plenty.
What does the main character's life look like when the story opens?
The event that knocks their normal life off course.
What sparks between them?
The thing that makes being together hard.
What does each of them stand to lose — or finally gain?
Your best guess at the ending, for now.
Built from your own words above — edit it freely until it sounds like your book. Your individual answers are always kept, too.