An Engineer's Guide to Writing a Novel - The Idea

The Idea.  Where does it come from?  What's a good one?  Good questions...

First of all, the Idea is critical.  Some truly awful, poorly written books have been created, published and produced a huge amount of money all because the Idea spoke to a large demographic.  Readers will put up with typos, grammatical errors, discontinuities and other literary offenses if they're intrigued by the concept.

But don't use that as an excuse to put less than your best work out there.  Seriously.  It's embarrassing.  A great idea will translate into a great book with just a bit more effort.  And, you don't know if your idea is truly great or merely good.  Theoretically, the former will prevail, but the latter requires nurturing and will languish if readers can't make it past the first chapter, maybe not even the first page.

Okay, that was a rant, and I'm done with that.  Where were we?  Oh yes.  The Idea.

Where does it come from?

1. Observation followed by back braining.  Sorry if this sounds trite, but it's true.

Example 1:
When I first started writing novels, I attended a lot of workshops and conferences.  And received a lot of rejection and harsh critiques and not a lot of positive feedback.  Was told "You're what's wrong with publishing today.  Editors are overwhelmed with mediocre writing to the extent that they overlook truly quality literature.  Like what I write."

Driving home from this particular workshop and still stinging from the criticism, I watched corn fields zing by and thought I'm surprised more of these critics aren't knocked off my impassioned writers.  There would be so many suspects.  Of course, since I was the only one with enough back bone to say anything, I'd be the prime focus.  Hmmm...  Et voila!  Workshop 'Til You Drop

Example 2:

After a few years as an engineer, I dreamed about working from home as a consultant and only interacting with my fellow designers when presenting completed projects.  And getting paid beaucoup bucks for my extraordinary work.  So I read a lot and researched what it would take to become a consultant.

I came across an article that proposed "When working from home, make sure to set up an area where you can be completely alone and without distractions.  Preferably geographically as well as electronically isolated.  Turn off your phone, lock the door and concentrate on your work."

This percolated around in my head until popping out as What happens if you shut yourself off and tell everyone not to bother you and you have a heart attack or an accident and hit your head or if you're attacked by creatures from an alternate dimension and can't reach anyone because you're geographically and electronically isolated... 
The Basement Office was born.

2. What's hot.  

As soon as a best seller appears, there's a flurry of copycats.  Agents, editors and publishers cry out for the next Hunger Games, Fifty Shades of Grey, or Harry Potter.  And people want to prolong the experience and are receptive to the genres.

However.

When is the topic hot and when does it cool off to a level of tepid mush?

If you have an idea that fits a trend or, even better, have already written the book and were waiting for an opportunity to shop it - great!  Now's your chance!  Well written, coupled with a great idea, you could be Divergence to Hunger Games, Sword of Shannara to Lord of the Rings.

On the other hand, if you're writing a book just because you want to be rich, too, it's probably going to fail.  Probably.  Maybe not. It's a weird world.

3. What an agent, editor or publisher is looking for.  

In their bios, publishing figures have call-outs for what they're accepting.  This can be a wellspring of ideas as something might sing to you and set off a creative fervor.  

I've had this go both ways.  One was to write a Christian Romance, the other is a project I'm working on right now.  The former was a huge, colossal bust.  Mainly because I don't read this genre and really didn't understand what I was writing.  And I hated every minute of it.  The latter is something I'm excited about, but have no idea how it will be received.  I'll let you know if this is my breakout novel...

But be careful.  These publishing figures remind me of teenagers in love.  Tommy is the sexiest, funniest boy in school and I love him and will always love him and want to go out with him and just him forever...  Is that Sam?  Sam is the sexiest...

So what makes an idea good?

Honestly, this is the conundrum that's vexing everyone in the publishing industry today.  Don't over think it - this leads to analysis paralysis.  

Write what you read.  Write what you love.  Write for fun.  Above all, write.  The rest will fall in line...