You have this fantastic idea floating around in your head. You know it’s a great story because it’s captivated your entire being: you’ve dreamed of this story many times and you think about it whenever you go out to do errands or simply to walk the dog. The idea is all-consuming. You’re convinced it’ll be a bestseller. So, how do you get the idea from your head onto paper and off to a publisher? It might seem a little overwhelming, but a simple strategy will help you write this all-time great story.

It’s all in the characters and the backstory, emphasizing the latter. When you consider how often you roused yourself from a deep sleep and thought the dream you just had would make a spectacular book, you may not realize it, but you’re onto something. Take the characters from your dream and develop a thorough, concise backstory; the way is paved to writing your great story. The weaving nuances of the plot will find their way as the backstory is constructed. So, how do you create a thorough and concise backstory? And how do you take this backstory development to the next level: THE STORY?

First of all, start writing. Your story will never get anywhere if you don’t write it down. It’ll just float around in your head until another story pushes it out. So, write it. Don’t worry about methodology and technicalities: get your story on paper (or on the computer). As you write, make sure you focus on character goals and conflict, focus on the characters (the people), and the backstory. Even if your idea, the plot that was once a dream, is in an abstract form, it’s imperative that you follow your characters, and establish your setting, situation, and emotions. Otherwise, there’s no story; it’s merely a this happened when and why chain of events.

When I started writing my novel, “Island of Dreams” (Tell-Tale Publishing 2023), I had dreamed of a scenario where a young woman was washed up on the beach. That’s where I began the plot. As Rosalind Melodious Bell, Rose, the main character, was semi-conscious, lying on the sandy beach, she heard voices: a boy’s and a man’s. Then she’s lifted and carried away. She feels like she’s floating, something she does as she goes in and out of consciousness during her recovery. Her semi-conscious state of being allows her mind to wander, back to her last memories, when, as a concert pianist, she’s on a cruise ship that sinks on its first night in the Caribbean. The plot evolves as Rose awakens and discovers a whole new world, one that has survived since the beginnings of the myth of Atlantis. She learns that she’s marooned on an island, a very magical island, somewhere in the mysterious and haunting Bermuda Triangle. When informed that the rest of the world has come to an end, Rose sets out to rediscover what she’s lost, to learn the truth about so many things.

My idea evolved as I wrote the story. I took the core concept from my dreams and changed its perspective, creating a dystopian plot, an end-of-the-world scenario. I added some twists to the plot, making it more complex than the dream that initiated the idea. And, making it into a dystopian novel? Totally out of my normal genre of preference. I originally thought the plot would be a romance, and, perhaps it was in the end, but the dystopian genre held firm. I avoided making changes as I plowed through the story. Editing would come later. If I tried to fix everything along the way, I’d never make it through. And, perish the thought, my story might develop some unexpected inconsistencies. The bottom line is, from idea to story, the key is to stop thinking about the idea and start writing it. That’s what I did. And it worked!