How to Decide Which Story You Should Write Next

When it comes to deciding to write a book, you might find you have a lot of ideas, you just don’t know which one to go with. It’s an important decision because you need to be able to commit to it for however long it takes you to write a book. Writing this book is going to take up a lot of your time, consume much of your attention, and take over your thoughts.

The first thing you need to do is create an hour of uninterrupted time; block this out in your diary, put your phone on silent mode, and take yourself somewhere quiet to work. Hopefully, you already have a list of all the story ideas you’ve had, if not, now is the time to write these down.

In the blog post below, we’ve put together some helpful advice, some questions to get you thinking and some exercises which will help you to better understand yourself and your motivations.

This is Your Story

Nobody else can tell you what to write. Firstly, you’d probably struggle to explain to someone else the plot of each of your ideas – especially if some of them are only half-formed in your own mind, but even if you were successful at painting a clear picture of each book idea, their interests, and motivations – which will influence their recommendation – may be completely different from yours.

Assess Market Viability

Most authors and literary professionals will advise against writing a book solely because you think it will be a success on the shelves. But practical considerations like this do matter if you want to make a living from your work.

It’s worth looking at the different trends to see what is popular in the market, but never write a book because something is trending. It can take months or even years to write a book so by the time you finish, it’s likely that the trend you’ve followed is no longer relevant. Instead, look at what excites readers, and try to find where you have common interests. 

Consider Your Long-term Goals

Every book you write will contribute to your writing career. Are you trying to establish yourself in a particular genre? Are you working on a series of books? Are you aiming to increase your writing skills by trying different styles? If you want to establish yourself as a romance writer, or a period drama writer, any ideas you have that are non-fiction or for young adults are perhaps best being moved to the bottom of your list of ideas.

What’s the book you want to read?

This is a good place to start, but if you have a list of story ideas, it will only take you so far, because you’ll probably find that you want to read every book you’ve got an idea for. That’s why you had the idea in the first place and noted it down, right? But maybe your list is a big list, and maybe you’ve been writing it for a long time, and perhaps your interests have changed since you started. If this is the case, there may be some earlier ideas you can cross off, or at least put to the bottom of the list.

What Attracts you to a Story?

Before we talk about this one, write a list of 5 books that you have read recently that you have enjoyed. Now write a second list of 5 books you want to read. What is it about these books that attracted you to them, and what was it about the story that kept you hooked? Are there things that these books had in common?

Your list might look like this

• A protagonist I can relate to
• A love story
• A dragon

You can be as specific or generalised as you like, it’s your list!

Now that you have your list, consider how many of these things occur in the story ideas that you have.

The things that keep you reading a story, will be the things that keep you interested in the story you’re writing.

One Last Story

Sometimes you can get stuck because you want to write a story for every idea, and instead of thinking about which one to write, you’re thinking about which one to write first, then second, then third. But what if you knew you could only write one story? Ask yourself which story you would write if you could only pick one. This will put pressure on you to choose the story most important to you.

Too much choice

Sometimes you can get stuck because there is too much choice, too many ideas to compare, too many things to take into consideration.

If you only had to decide between two story ideas, could you do that? It would certainly be easier than deciding between three or four story ideas.

Exercise: Write down all of your story ideas on separate pieces of paper. Put all of the ideas into a hat, a box, or a pillowcase, and pull out two pieces of paper. If you had to choose between them, which would be the winner? Repeat this process until you have just one idea left in your hand.

Trust Your Instincts

Writing is a very personal and creative experience. After considering all your options, sometimes the decision you make won’t be logical, or rational. Your instinct might tell you the next story you want to write, and you might not be able to explain your reasonings. It may simply be that this is the idea which keeps coming to your mind.

Finally…

Remember, if you start writing, and you’re not happy with your plot, or the story doesn’t come together the way you had hoped it would, or you’re not in love with your characters, or maybe you’ve lost your reason why and you don’t feel motivated anymore, there are ways to overcome all of these things. But failing that, you can set the book aside and work on a different writing project. In other words, your decision isn’t final, so you don’t need to worry about making the “wrong choice” – there’s no such thing.