It All Starts with 1 Great Idea

I had an idea for a post, inspired when I recently found this quote on Reddit: “Your first published story or novel will have to be better than the average published ones.” 

The unnamed writer explained: Writers at a workshop wanted to know why one student’s story didn’t sell and it was better than these other stories that sold.

The teacher explained that they would need better stories to break through. The students found that unfair, but other published and award-winning teachers at this workshop confirmed it. The students eventually discovered it’s true.

Attention, first-time authors: My point of bringing this up is that your story has got to be compelling, unique, different, attractive, and well written to sell. If you can’t do that, hire a ghostwriter to help.

Here’s another way of looking at it. In publishing, an author needs seven things:

Idea,

Format,

Manuscript,

Editing,

Designing,

Publishing, and

Marketing.

Most authors focus on the bottom of the list. I know this because prospects who could ask me about my philosophy and process instead ask about publishing and marketing.

The most important parts are at the top of the list, starting with the idea. The farther down the list you go, the easier it is.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take the steps backwards.

Marketing. You can’t sell or inform an audience about your book until it exists or will exist. You can do some publicity pre-release, but you can’t execute the meat of your marketing plan until it’s published.

Publishing. You can’t release your book until all the parts are complete. That means you have to design it. You need the pages done, which means you need the margins set. You might have photos that need to be inserted. You’ll definitely need a cover.

Designing. You can’t begin flowing the pages until the manuscript is complete. If you want to have any chance at success, you’ll need a manuscript that has been looked at, combed through, criticized, praised, and parsed by unbiased, uninvolved experts. Editors.

Editing. You can’t edit a manuscript until at least a first draft is written. You might need more than one type of editing to make sure the manuscript is so good that it would get published and have a chance to sell.

Manuscript. You can’t start the writing process until you know what type of manuscript you’re writing. In this example, it’s a book, but it also could be a speech, a short story, a white paper, a script, a blog post, a social media post, etc. Also, what’s your word count? How many pages is your goal?

Format. You can’t know what your project will be until you know the story you want to tell. In our example, it’s a book, but it also could be a novel, a novella, or an ebook.

Idea. You can’t do anything if you don’t have an idea for a really great story. The idea is the story. It has to be that good. 

I’ve written about what makes a great story. Read it here, or I’ll sum it up. It’s a story that has a powerful and irresistible effect; or earns admiration, attention or respect; relates to the reader, puts the reader into the characters’ world and environment and lets the reader walk in their shoes; and has an emotional component. That starts with an idea.

I bring this up because people are using artificial intelligence to write stories. This is a big problem because AI can’t generate original ideas like a human ghostwriter can do. 

AI can only be average at best. If everyone’s doing it, logic dictates it isn’t spectacular or memorable. 

More likely, it’s crap. Want proof? Look at Sports Illustrated. It was a venerable magazine often considered home to some of the best sportswriting and photography. But in 2023, it was accused of using AI to write articles by authors who weren’t real people.

Or how about the New York attorneys who were sanctioned after they used ChatGPT to find cases and didn’t verify if they were real, which they weren’t?

As Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) said in “Game of Thrones”: 

What unites people? Armies? Gold? Flags? Stories. There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story.

That’s the idea.

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