The big idea

There's a long road from having an idea for a story to turning it into a finished novel.  Often when we get the initial idea it comes to us crystal-clear.  Yes, this is the theme of our book.  So how do we keep that big idea sharp in our work as we write?

Try to reduce your big idea to a single sentence. I recently had to do this for an open reading submission of my novel Eyemind. I'm not sure that my 'Keri and Bi must find out who is putting up evil installations causing people to self-harm and stop them' quite counts as high concept, but it does sum up the essence of the story.

Having my story reduced to this starkness helped me in my adaptation of the novel to future crime.  It was there to remind me that I must keep reminding the reader of why these installations are dangerous.  So I have people slashing their cheeks with knives, and my main character attacked and nearly slashed herself at one point.  Keeping my big idea in mind reminded me of why it was important for Keri and Bi to find out who was doing this.

For Panthera : Death Soiral, the question was : can Ren find out who was killing kingcat cubs before the species is wiped out? 

Reducing your story to its big idea helps you to keep on track.  Does your sub-plot serve the big idea? No?  Then it has to go.

Returning to Eyemind's big idea, I then ask questions around it.  Asking who are Keri and Bi, and why are they qualified to investigate these artworks allows me to add appropriate back character history.  Asking what happens inside these dangerous installations made me work them out in detail. Asking how  people are affected by their subliminal processing allowed me to show scenes of people self-harming.

Asking why does this matter allowed me to show that people were being programmed by the artworks, in ways that were dangerous to others.  It wasn't harmless fun, it needed to be investigated.

Exploring my big idea and answering its questions helps me to write stories that I'm satisfied with, novels that I'm sure answer the questions I ask at the beginning.