Turning an idea into something

Outline! (Like a plot summary.) I never used to do it, but I'm trying to write a conspiracy thriller ish mystery thing, and I find that outlining is a blessing when it comes to connecting all the shreds of ideas and twists into a coherent whole.

Step 1: Create a character.
Step 2: Find out what the character wants. (important!)
Step 3: Put several obstacles between your character and his/her goal.
Step 4: Flesh out.

You might want to check out "Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook" by Donald Maass. It's quite helpful for putting things in place to write a novel for the first time, and he uses tons of good, relevant examples to illustrate his points.

I'll second TheInkGoddess' suggestion to outline.

And for tight plot structure, I'd check out Save the Cat, by Blake Snyder and Writing Fiction for Dummies. StC is good for organizing your plot points and WFfD is good for fleshing out your ideas.

Ryan_Sullivan said:

You might want to check out "Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook" by Donald Maass. It's quite helpful for putting things in place to write a novel for the first time, and he uses tons of good, relevant examples to illustrate his points.

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This is an excellent book!

However, it does boil down to having a character readers sympathize with who has a goal that will be difficult for him to achieve.

Using index cards and jotting down ideas or scenes can help. Or you could just use bullets in a program with word where you can easily switch them around.

There are two questions that help me when I am trying to build a plot: "What if?" and "Why?". Other questions, like "What?", "When?" and "How?" are great little bracketed notes when you need something within a scene but aren't sure what that is yet.

You might find it useful to just try and tell the story to yourself from start to finish, or you might end up with a bunch of things you'll need to set into some semblance of order eventually. In the end, though, plot is like a train. It has a beginning (engine), a middle (the cars) and a caboose (the end). Sometimes it can be told in an order that isn't chronological, but my point is that knowing where you need to start, where you need to stop and what needs to happen along the way will get you a long way.

Good luck.

I just sit down and start writing. If I outline, the plot ends up deviating so far from it that it ends up being something entirely different. The second draft is where the story actually starts forming something coherent.

Discovery's half the fun anyway, right?

I find I need to know who my character is going to talk to first, and once I have that conversation in my mind, I figure out where it'll lead next. For example, if my MC (let's call her Sue) has her first conversation with her best friend (Bert), I figure out what they'll talk about. Let's say they talk about cheese. So they have this conversation about how cheese is awesome (because it is), and near the end of it, Bert mentions a dance that's coming up, and he wants to know if Sue wants to go. And how does Sue react? Depending on how she reacts, you get a lot of options as to where the story can go.

Hope that helps!

Gayle