SELF PUBLISHING Idea, Planning, Plot · Golden Age crime Heist stories Conmen/women 1890s Paris...

SELF PUBLISHING

Idea, Planning, Plot Finding your raw material

Choosing your idea

Defining your USP

Planning your novel

The plan for today

Hello + why we’re here

Finding your idea

Refining your idea

Defining your USP

From idea to planning

Hello & welcome

A little about me

A little about JW

… and why ideas matter so damn much

From right back

in the beginning

I’m a Jericho

Writers

‘Graduate’

I’ve used multiple

JW services and

attended the FoW

many times

Why am I talking to you today?

I believe that with the right help, coupled with the right attitude, you can get better and get published!

Book Deals in UK, US

and elsewhere…

First novel soon to be a

major TV Series for ITV

I’m James Law, and I write under the name J.S Law

All experience levels.

All kinds of routes

to success

All genres

All nationalities

All ages

We know we can

help writers like you

(We’ve done it before)

More to the point, Jericho Writers have helped 100s of writers get published

So big question: why do ideas matter so damn much?

Because your book won’t sell without a cracking idea

It won’t hook an agent

It won’t find an editor

It won’t grab a reader in a store or online

Yes, the hard work is in execution. But without the great idea, no one will get to see how you execute it

James’s Law

Example Do you want to read this book?

“Teenage girl falls in love with teenage boy”

Answer No, not really

There are MILLIONS of boy meets girl stories.

And people can get a little bored of them…

It’s not that we don’t like the basic story, we’re just not super-engaged by the same-old formulation

But you like this story, right?

Teenage girl falls in love with a teenage boy…

and they’re both dying of cancer

And this one

Who is really a vampire

And this one could do nicely …

While fighting for her life in a TV reality / survival show

Some might say the actual execution of those blockbusters was fair to middling at best…

But they succeeded because:

1. Their premise stood out a mile

2. The USP was baked into every page of the book

And it’s not just genre fiction

Almost all the books I can think of,

including the very best, follow

James’s Law of the Big Idea

His Dark Materials

Coming of age story, where you can cut through into different worlds

Gone Girl

Missing woman story, flipped on its head by the mid-book discovery of who the missing

woman really is

Never Let Me Go

Love triangle … in world where some humans are bred for organ-harvesting

Harry Potter

Unwanted orphan story, set in a magical boarding school

For example :

Finding your idea

You already have plenty!

Here’s one tool to get some initial ideas

List everything that sparks excitement in you You want a big, baggy, diverse list

Arctic exploration Golden Age crime Heist stories Conmen/women 1890s Paris Fashion industry Early aviation Treasure hunts

1920s America Ocean sailing Unreliable narrators King Arthur Ghost stories Time slip / time travel Anything Russian Etc, etc, etc

Remember!!

Write what you know!

Nah…

Write what brings you joy ;-)

Write what brings you joy

Write something that makes you want to…

Write!

Here’s one tool to get some initial ideas

List everything that sparks excitement in you You want a big, baggy, diverse list

Arctic exploration Golden Age crime Heist stories Conmen/women 1890s Paris Fashion industry Early aviation Treasure hunts

1920s America Ocean sailing Unreliable narrators King Arthur Ghost stories Time slip / time travel Anything Russian Etc, etc, etc

Settings

Arctic 1890s Paris

1920s Florida Post-Roman Britain

English country house

Heroes / heroines

Destroyer captain Modern Sherlock

1890s Parisian artist Ghost etc, etc

Theme / Challenge

Heist Survival

Elaborate murder mystery Haunting

etc, etc

Use that list to generate some unconnected ideas

At this stage, don’t try to join things up

You’re just looking for things that genuinely excite you

Settings

Arctic

Heroes / heroines

Destroyer captain

Theme / Challenge

Survival

Once you have a long, rich list, experiment with making some connections

Start to create some very short story descriptions

A World War 1 destroyer is struck by an iceberg. Captain must guide his team 450 miles across the ice to safety.

Broad brush is good. We’re looking for ideas, not plots!

What do you think so far?

BORING!

The issue is that the story is too expected

Possible solutions

1. Go deep Dramatise an actual historical expedition to keep story

as authentic as possible

2. Go wide Introduce a rogue – unexpected – element.

This is a very powerful technique and it nearly always works!

Refining your idea

How to kill the boring

Settings

Arctic

Heroes / heroines

Destroyer captain

Theme / Challenge

Survival

We said this story was too expected

The issue is the lack of any rogue ingredient

That’s why teen romance on its own is dull. Teen romance + vampires / cancer / TV reality warfare = NOT dull

So we need to re-do this exercise but looking for a rogue ingredient

Settings

Arctic

Heroes / heroines

Destroyer captain

Theme / Challenge

Survival + murder mystery

Here’s it is again – with a rogue ingredient

Our story in very brief summary

Arctic shipwreck. Mysterious deaths (murders?). Captain must rescue his men … and find the killer

Boom! I want to read that book

Settings

English country house

Heroes / heroines

Theme / Challenge

Ghost follows the hunt for her killer

Here’s a golden age crime story with a rogue ingredient

Classic Golden Age murder setup. But it’s the ghost of the victim who narrates the action. Oh yes, and ghost is a very unreliable narrator – and possibly the killer!

Bam! I want to read that book. (In fact, I might want to write it)

Settings

NY fashion house + 1890s Paris

Heroes / heroines

Young NY fashion intern

Theme / Challenge

NY intern timeslips into the past

Here’s a Devil Wears Prada story with a rogue ingredient

Young fashion intern. Career issues, romantic issues. Gets pulled into 1890s Paris. Then …????

Premise sounds strong. But these all need development

Ideally, you’re looking for a rich reverberation between your elements

Teen romance, plus …

Vampires speaks to teen love of darkness

Cancer romance becomes harder, sadder & brighter

TV reality warfare Stakes massively higher

Provoke a reaction

All these ideas can provoke a reaction.

Even if it’s not your genre, they sound different and interesting – and that’s YOUR idea!

Developing your idea

From idea and concept, to a plan we can get behind

What do people really mean by this?

Where do you get your ideas?

1. How do you make your idea different?

2. How do you take it from an idea to a plot?

Active Thinking

I ‘mull’ a lot (inactive)

But when I want to build an idea, I have a few ‘active’ techniques I use (and that I’ll share with you)

Good old

fashioned

‘Brainstorm’

Timeline the

World ‘Why’ Diagrams

Active Techniques

The order I use them in changes – but let’s look

Timelines

Timeline your world – real or imagined – and start putting down events that might matter

I use Aeon Timeline – but you don’t need it

Timelines

Don’t rush it – this stage takes time and it’s well worth taking the time you need.

Think around the subject – your plot can be enriched by having a deep and interesting backstory (that we

defo won’t bore our readers with)

Timelines

Start to frame my story

Start to add characters and backdrop

Start to add MOTIVATION

Next up - Brainstorms

I do this for HOURS!

Active Brainstorming

All of my books Start here.

Characters

Interlinking Timelines

Relationship Diagrams

General Notes and Thoughts

That sometimes don’t fit anywhere… Yet

Story Flow

Character/Story Progression

Character Backgrounds

Background Timelines

Problems!! Lots of them!

I take this seriously

That’s not even all of them! Not even close!

Idea to coherent plan takes work

Hard, fun, absorbing, ACTIVE work

Finally (kinda) – Why Diagrams

No, I couldn’t think of a better name – sorry

WTF is a ‘Why Diagram’

Things that annoy me about novels

1. When I just don’t give a &%$£

2. When I have no idea why they’re doing what they’re doing

3. When they do something completely unexpected (usually to bail the author out of a plot hole)

When the story just hasn’t been thought out

Plotters v Pantsers

If I haven’t already mentioned this 50 times, let’s do it now

Why Diagrams

This is about me challenging my own ideas – encouraging myself to think about what happens,

then challenging it

Why Diagrams

To help refine the plot, but also to check it works

Why Diagrams - Questions

1. Who cares?/So what?

2. WHY?

3. Then what?

4. Really??

James thinks…

If you can get a single scene

If you can put that scene in a context (time/location/other events)

If you can build characters and a world around that scene

If you can challenge yourself (and your character) to take an exciting, believable, relatable journey

Then all that’s left to do is write it down ;-)

And a final word

Question and answer

session follows

Writing books is hard

The grim truth

Most writers don’t complete their manuscripts

Agents take on 1 in 1000 manuscripts

They sell about 2/3 of what they take on

So what do you do? Give up? Or get smarter?

Jericho Writers has a solution…

Improve your writing skills

Learn how to get published / self-publish

The results you want

Because JW love writers!

On 29th November-2nd December we’re going to give

annual memberships away at 33% off.

33%-off membership gives you EVERYTHING

Live pitch sessions with literary agents How to

Write course Getting Published course Self-

publishing course Masterclasses Full-length

interviews with agents etc AgentMatch

And much more

You get some life-altering resources for

relative pennies

We get new friends

If we go on delivering awesome

value, we get to stay friends

forever

We think this members club idea is the best thing we’ve ever done

What you need to do now?

Nothing at all

(We’ll email you)

Got ANY questions?

Ask away

Ask anything you like about ideas, elevator

pitches, planning etc

JW membership offer

29 Nov – 2 Dec

33% off annual membership

That’s it from me. Over to you

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SELF PUBLISHING Idea, Planning, Plot · Golden Age crime Heist stories Conmen/women 1890s Paris...

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