Ep 162: What Do You Do with Story Ideas?

Last week I told my email subscribers I'd love for future content to be inspired by the very issues that trip them up or hold them back. Today I’m going to spotlight one of the first responses: What do you do with the initial ideas once you’ve got them? This writer continued by saying they're great about coming up with a brief synopsis and sometimes even an outline but then they get stuck. "I never know where to begin! What’s the best way to start any story?” Story Ideas Are Gold—Store Them in a System First let me address at a practical level what to do with those initial ideas. Not every writer generates a lot of motivating, marketable ideas, so if you have more than one, you're sitting on a creative gold mine. Take good care of your ideas and you’ll always have options. Store any and all ideas in a safe place—ideally in a system designed for easy access, one that supports your project’s progress. Your Writing Pipeline I suggest setting up a Writing Pipeline, which I’ve explained in another article. Allow me to mention briefly that my Writing Pipeline consists of different folders set up in Evernote marked: * Ideas * Drafts * Final edits * Shipped * Archive I have two more folders in the same stack that aren’t part of the actual pipeline but feed the pipeline, and those are: * Notes & Quotes * Research While Evernote has worked well for me, your Writing Pipeline folders could just as easily be set up in Trello, Google Docs, or any project management app or system you use. But the point is to be sure you have a place to capture, store, retrieve, and develop your ideas. Initial Idea Development Let’s say an idea comes to you one morning. You capture it in an Idea folder where you’ve stored several other ideas. Later that evening you review your ideas and decide to develop that one. An idea needs time to grow and develop. You may want to map out a plot or flesh out a concept. You might make lists, draw mind maps, jot the main ideas or plot points onto Post-It notes, and assemble all that into a working outline. This is where the writer who posed that question finds him or herself. If we’re at the same stage, we’re staring at files filled with at least a few ideas in early stages of development—with a synopsis and maybe an outline. What now? Pick Your Favorite Story Idea It’s time to pick one of those ideas and write. Not long ago I waded along the edge of a body of water. Scattered across the hot sand were not shells but stones. I picked up a few and gazed at them, admiring the lines that cut across one, the soft red hue of another, and the smooth feel of a flat gray stone against my fingertips. I showed my selection of stones to a friend. “I love stones!” she exclaimed. Then she headed out to the water’s edge to find her own choice handful. Others in our group did the same. Next thing you know, we were running up to each other, showing off our favorites, admiring the beauty. Out of all the stones piled along the edge of the water, we’d all identified our own small selection that pleased us. In the same way I was drawn to one of those stones more than another—and who knows why?—I sift through my Ideas file now and then, and find myself drawn to one of my ideas more than others. The same can happen to you. You’ll read through ideas and for whatever reason, your mind will ignite just a little more when thinking through one idea than it does for another.