One of the goals I set for 2025 was to create 2 new story ideas. The idea behind this one was pretty obvious, I hadn’t added a new story WIP page to my tracking journal in all of 2024. I’d managed to make progress on the ones that ARE in the book, but I hadn’t added new ones. I’ve said it before (and I’ll probably say it again) to be successful at this writing/publishing life you HAVE to have many ideas in many different stages.
Currently, I have 2 works-in-progress that are fully drafted but unedited. I have NOTHING being actively drafted. That means it’s a good time to start picking something new. In order to make this happen, I have to dive back into my idea journal. That means taking a good, hard look at what ideas I have in progress and deciding which ones are worth putting a little effort into. Which ones are calling to me?
Let’s start with the basics:
- 16 things in the idea journal are just ideas. They’re not tied to anything specific, they aren’t flushed out. Sometimes they have a scene AND an idea. Sometimes they have a generic concept. Sometimes they have a character. But that’s it. No work has been put in on making them SOMETHING yet. They’re just sort of THERE. Written down so I won’t forget about them.
- 5 ideas have gone a step beyond that into brainstorming territory. Those are the ones I’ve circled back to. Often they’ll have extra scenes, long (rambling) notes about things, or details already worked out. They’re usually pretty raw and disorganized thoughts but at least they exist!
- 4 ideas have gone yet another step beyond that. I have attempted outlines for these. I say attempted because, in each case, I’ve abandoned it for some reason or another. It would make the most sense, theoretically, to go back to these. These are the ones that have the most work put into them, afterall. But I also know there’s a reason these ones were blocked so I tend to avoid them until I have that LIGHTNING flash of inspiration.
I read through a lot of what I had written down on these story ideas recently. Four of the ideas sort of jumped out at me.
- A short story collection centered around lottery winners. This idea has been floating around my brain for a bit now. I keep coming back to it, thinking it might be fun to flush out some of the stories that are in my brain. But NONE of them are actually written down. The idea calls to me but I don’t think it’s ready to be chosen YET. I did jot down some notes for 2 of the stories that would, maybe, end up in this collection.
- Hero and Villain. I’m going to keep the details of this one a semi-secret for now (which is always a good indication that my brain really likes the idea). Basically we’d be in a fantasy world, someplace I have yet to build or create. We’d have a classic hero and a classic villain. Don’t worry, there’d be a twist. But that’s my secret for now. I started brainstorming a little of this story and it hasn’t gone totally quiet yet. I’m very aware that this would be a MASSIVE undertaking because it would involve creating an entire fantasy world, something I haven’t done with Fraun. It has potential if I can keep myself from getting scared away.
- Once a Friend. This one is the story I see in my head that would logically follow the scene I posted to the blog https://tabathashipleybooks.com/2024/05/30/once-a-friend/. I know there is more to this story, I know more about the characters than we got here. I know more about what direction the story would go in. I could probably sit down and work on an outline for this one. I’m toying with the idea.
- A paragraph. This one isn’t ever going to be a story, I don’t think. I have this paragraph in the idea journal that I’ve highlighted and underlined on more than one occasion. I REALLY want to find a way to work it into a story. It would fit with either 2 or 3. This might be the year I decide what story this paragraph goes with and that’s pretty exciting.
So, anyway, that’s how things look right now. I may go with short stories, I may go with the fantasy world, or I may go with the rest of the story about the friends.
If you’ve got an opinion, let me know in the comments! Otherwise, I’m going to try writing a little on each and see what happens next.