Day 1: Idea to Concept For Your Novel

Hey there, Igniter! Monica Leonelle from theworldneedsyourbook.com, and today is day 1 of the challenge. Today we're going to be talking about how to move your idea to a concept for your novel. So we are on day 1 of the challenge, moving from idea to concept. And so the gist of this day is that you probably have some idea of what your story is, but it may not be a fully formed concept yet. And so this lesson is gonna teach you how to very quickly come up with a concept for your book. And so, you know, the format that we're using is going to be a what-if question. And it really is just gonna focus on 3 things, the protagonist, the opposition or the antagonist, sometimes called the opposing force, the antagonistic force, and then the situation, which is basically just something that forces these two opposing sides together. And so the, you know, again, this, this can unfold many different ways in your story. So it doesn't have to be two warring sides. So one example is that, you know, especially in romance, that's— this is a great example. The antagonistic force is typically the belief that the two of the, the two people cannot be in a relationship together. So it's typically like all the reasons that they have for not entering that relationship. And then, you know, in other, other stories, it's, it's, it's often an opposing force as opposed to an opposing person. Now that person or that opposing force may be represented by an antagonist, but or like a villain type of character, but it, it could actually just be more of a, like a fatal flaw or a situation. So we will get into that. And, you know, don't get too hung up on trying to make this concept any specific way. We're really just trying to get the basics of the idea of your story into a format that is more usable for storytelling purposes. All right, so we're going to start with just looking at your book idea. And the way that I do this is I mind map this out. So I've provided a mind map for you, kind of gotten it started, and there are a number of prompts. So what do I know about my book already? What's the first thing that happens? Who's in the book? What's the end game? Romances, mysteries, that sort of thing. And so you can add any additional questions or any additional bubbles that you'd like to the mind map. And if you are doing this without the workbook pages, then you can also do this in like just on a sheet of paper or in a journal. And so then we're going to turn that set of ideas into a what-if statement. And so basically you can just summarize your idea from the mind map, and then you will tease out 3 different things: the protagonist, the antagonist or antagonistic force, and then the situation where these two sides clash. And then you can write that as a what-if statement or a paragraph once you've kind of identified all 3 of those. And so this, you know, this what-if sentence, it's sometimes called like a pitch line, a logline. Those are more screenwriting terms, but it's basically just It's just the concept. It's just the idea of what the story is told in a very succinct way that helps people understand it quickly. And so that's, that's really all that this day is. That's all. You're already done. Idea, the concept, done. Um, so I've also included another section about trope twisting. And so this is, uh, the idea here is that you want to change the the top level or the situational aspects of your story while still keeping the emotional resonance and really the emotional skeleton underneath the story. So an example would be if you were writing a story about a sparkly vampire who falls in love with a human girl. So I'm talking about specifically about the Twilight Saga, which is a very popular young adult series. If you were trying to write a story similar to that or in the same genre, this would just be like, how can you twist the tropes while still keeping the, the emotional resonance or basically the way the book felt to the reader while still keeping that in place? And so there are a number of questions. Can you swap gender or race? Can you give the character different relationships, different disabilities? These different backgrounds. Giving the— so another thing for the antagonist, can you give the character an interesting relationship to the protagonist? So you see this happen a lot. I think the most common example is Luke and Darth Vader. So Darth Vader being Luke's father in Star Wars, that was kind of a twist, and I think it's used quite often now where, you know, the villain is somehow related to the protagonist in a way that neither of them can escape. And that's, that's really a big, big and important piece of that. So see what tropes that you can twist if that's of interest to you, and then rewrite your what-if sentence with those twisted tropes. Thank you so much for watching and listening, and I hope this content was helpful to you. If you have any questions about the content make sure you leave a comment below. And if you are not signed up for the challenge yet and you want to get in on all the goodies and everything we have to offer in the challenge, make sure you sign up. There's a link in the description below, and that will take you to everything you need to be a participant. I hope you enjoyed this content and have a wonderful day.