How Do You Know if Your Idea Is Good Enough to Be a Novel?

So, you’ve decided: you’re going to write a novel – and you have an idea for one, too. But is it good enough?

In the second article in our Ask An Author blog series, our authors offer ten questions that you can ask yourself to help you figure out whether your idea is worth pursuing.

How do you know if your idea is good enough to be a novel? Ask yourself…

1. Is it an idea that excites you?

I don’t think anyone has the six-million-dollar formula to writing an instant bestseller. You can follow trends and keep an eye on what publishers are buying and what is doing well, but publishing works so far in advance it’s hard to write to trend like that unless you are super quick. I think you need to trust your gut. When it comes to choosing an idea I always go with the one that excites me most – the one that I would want to read. If you find the concept exciting, the reader will too. I have often decided on one idea and started to work on it only to have another pop into my head and refuse to go away. It’s that niggling one that you can’t stop thinking about that is the winner. You will be working on this for a long time, so you need to be fully invested.

– Ali Clack, author of Lie or Die and Blood Moon (coming soon!)

2. Are you willing to put the time in?

I used to think that the story had to have ‘strong enough legs’ or a ‘big enough idea’ to see you through 80,000 or 90,000 words but after writing my tricky second novel I think that you can make most ideas work if you put the time in. That is, however, an entirely different thing to it being ‘good enough’ to find an agent or traditional publisher- those books need a combination of things like luck, a big concept, a killer hook and pitch etc.

– Cara Miller, author of The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder and Death on the Red Sea

3. Is it something you’ll enjoy writing?

Can you sum it up in one or two lines or does it take ten minutes to explain the premise? Is it something you yourself would enjoy reading? More importantly, is it something you would enjoy writing? For me, a good plot idea needs to be something I feel excited to write – something I worry that I need to get down on paper (or laptop) quickly before someone else pips me to the post with a similar idea!

– Sue Cunningham, author of TOTALLY DECEASED and CLOUD NINE 

4. What’s the scale of the story?

All ideas are good enough to become stories because what makes a story work is what you, the writer, bring to the idea. Your version of a story about three outcast duellists struggling to fulfil their deposed king’s last command is going to be very different from mine, and those differences are what make it worthwhile to write.

The more practical question is: how do you know if your idea wants to be a novel versus a novella, a short story, or a huge series?

If the essence of that idea can be expressed as a single turning point in someone’s life (e.g. “A much-abused employee finally finds the courage to quit their job”) then that lends itself naturally to a short story. Often, if I feel like I know everything I want to happen in the tale, then it’s likely to want to be a short story and trying to stretch it out into a novel will only mean padding it with things that aren’t integral to the idea itself.

If the essence of that idea can’t really be experienced without exploring other events and aspects of the character’s life and alternate paths pursued, then it’s more likely to want to be a novel. A story about a young person who sacrifices their relationships and artistic passions to graduate top of their law school class and get the job their parents wanted for them only to discover the practice of law is full of moral compromises that eat away at them until at last they meet someone who helps them find the courage to quit that job feels like it wants to be a novel.

Some ideas like how an artistic kid abandons their passions to graduate top of their class and become a famous lawyer only to discover corruption inherent in all parts of the system from the lawyers, prosecutors and judges even to the public’s expectations becomes determined to fix not just the firm they work at but the entire legal system . . . Well, that seems to me like it’s an idea that wants to be a series of novels.

Ultimately, If an idea speaks to you, if it arouses your internal dramatic curiosity, then it’s worth turning into a story, and the only question is what scale of story. A great way to proceed is to begin by simply writing it as a short story. Focus on that key turning point or question that got you interested in the idea in the first place and write it as quickly as you can as a short story. You’ll soon discover whether there are other aspects of the character’s journey that you want to explore, and that can show you the path to turning the idea into a novel.

– Sebastien De Castell, author of The Greatcoats fantasy series and the YA fantasy series, Spellslinger

5. Does it feel right?

I like to begin with the big strokes of the plot and the themes to see how I can combine them. Then I narrow the idea down to a blurb and a rough synopsis. It’s a good exercise that forces you to envisage a beginning, a middle, and an end. If I get that far, I can usually tell if the idea has enough scope, depth, and dramatic tension to work as a novel. I also see how I feel: If the idea develops easily, I continue. If it’s uphill work or doesn’t ‘open,’ I leave it. I don’t discard it completely though, but save it in my ‘compost’ heap. Sometimes combining two or more ideas together brings something fresh and workable.

– Laila Rifaat, author of Aliya to the Infinite City and Aliya Aboard the Time Train

6. Is it commercially viable?

I think of good enough as being commercial enough. To be published by one of the big publishers, it has to be an idea that they think they can sell enough copies of to make it financially viable.

I am very aware of the genre I write in, and what other successful books are doing. I make sure that I formulate my ideas to the point that they hit the ‘creative beats’ – ‘Save the Cat’ beats in my case – and that I have characters whose arcs will fulfil what my readers are looking for. I also check I have a selection of the tropes readers in my genre expect.

If I have an idea I am passionate about writing, and it ticks all the ‘commercially viable’ boxes, that is when I’ll go ahead and start writing it.

– Kirsty Collinson, author of Storm Heart

7. Do you really care about it?

At the beginning, I think maybe the only way to find this out is just to start writing! The question of whether the idea, the characters, the writing itself is ‘good enough’ probably haunts all writers, and it can feel completely mad to be spending so much time on something that might not go anywhere. Imposter syndrome is real, and will try to trip you up! I found my brilliant agent through the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, but I came SO CLOSE to not entering at all, because it was hours before the deadline and I had a huge crisis of confidence and felt that there was just no point entering, as my work wasn’t good enough, no-one else was ever going to care about this story, etc etc. But I pushed myself to do it (with minutes to spare), and found that other people DID care about the story, and loved the idea, and entering that competition completely changed my life. So I think that if it’s an idea that won’t let you go, and you care about it enough to want to spend your precious free time on it, then you need to ignore those horrible (and inevitable) doubts, and just keep going.

– Sarah Brooks, author of The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands

8. Can you distil it down into an exciting pitch and synopsis?

How do you know if your idea is good enough to be a novel? By reading and writing a lot. I realise now that the early stuff I wrote was utter drivel, I just didn’t have the experience to call it that. I think if you can distil your book down into an exciting one pitch sentence and then flesh that out into a synopsis and it stays exciting then you’re on to something. Or that’s how it is for me anyway.

– Alex Atkinson, author of The Cinderman and the rest of the Spooksmiths Investigate series

9. Does it take you on a journey?

You know if your idea is good enough to be a novel if you can imagine a compelling beginning, middle and end, I think – that includes things like knowing what arc your character’s internal life will take as well as the plot points. If nothing changes, or no lessons are learned, or if you’ve created a gorgeous world but your main character is mostly a tour guide for the reader and doesn’t go on any kind of personal journey, it might need more thinking time.

– Jessica Popplewell, author of The Dark Within Us

10. Do you have enough ideas to maintain interest through a novel?

I think that while having a good ‘hook’ or idea is important, it’s not so much in the idea as the detail that a novel gains its worth. Some novels tell age old stories of romance or adventure, but they do it with fresh eyes and new perspectives which make people love reading them.

You could also have a brilliant idea, but not be able to execute it to the point of being a publishable novel.

I think it’s better to think in terms of – do you have enough ideas to maintain interest through a novel. Whatever the original idea, I think it’s best to write it, and then keep revising it until it’s good enough.

– Katja Kaine, author of Blood of Gods and Girls (coming soon!)

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