StoryCraft Novel Challenge: Let’s write a novel together - It’s time to find the best idea

Welcome to the first exercise of the StoryCraft Novel Challenge! We’re so excited for you to take on this journey with us. Over the next six weeks, we’ll be working through a high-level overview of the StoryCraft Process, available in our Course and Workbook.

The goal for this challenge is to develop our next novel using a systematic, step-by-step process. We’ll be working toward an outline first, and then drafting the novel once we’ve figured out the core of the story. Remember, there will always be surprises in the drafting process, so there’s no such thing as a perfect outline. Flexibility and exploration are key parts to this pathway.

Our first step is coming up with our idea. We suggest you start with something completely new for this challenge, as you’ll get the most out of it. An idea is the foundation of the writing process, but we also need to make sure it’s the right idea. For that, we’re going to need options.

A great exercise from the StoryCraft Workbook is called Crazy 8s. To give it a try, draw a grid of eight squares on a piece of paper and set a timer for ten minutes. Then, in each square, write a new idea for a novel. Try to get as many different ideas as possible so you have some interesting choices.

The point of this exercise is to put your creative brain into a rapidly flowing stream of ideas so you can find not just an idea, but the best possible idea for this next book.

Use the hashtag #StoryCraftNovelChallenge to share your progress, and we’ll see you at the next step, creating our wishlist!

Happy Writing,

Jess and L Theodoora