Starting a New Book

How to Write Good: A Writer's (Woefully Incomplete) Toolbox

Now that Sleepers is off the ground, it’s time I started my next project. This is an exciting time in the book writing process—one of infinite possibilities. I could literally write anything I want! Anything!

So how do I start?

Photo by FORTYTWO on Unsplash

In the beginning, the very beginning, before there is any semblance of a story, there are . . . pieces.

Ideas.

Pieces of ideas.

For example, before I started writing Sleepers, I kept a list in my Notes app of these random, unrelated thoughts. Like this:

• person who gets cut in half and lives

• magical loaf of bread

• Tucson

• Austin

• single dad raising teenage girl

• Sims world

• 1980’s

• guy who tries to kill himself with exhaust fumes but runs out of gas

• multi-level marketing scheme

• the patriarchy

• sinkhole to another dimension

• Ken doll (no peen)

• corporation who exploits people in their sleep

This is just a sample to give you an idea. The actual list is 20 times longer. Some of these ideas made it into Sleepers, and some of them did not. How did I decide?

I can’t remember which idea came first, but I’m pretty sure I had decided early on that it would take place in Tucson. Most of my book sales were happening locally at the time (still are) so the book marketer in me thought it would be smart to promote it as a Tucson-based story.

Then I copied/pasted that idea, “Tucson,” into a new a new Scrivener project called “New Book.” Then I went back to my original list and see what other pieces might fit.

The idea that kept rising to the top was the one about a corporation exploiting people by accessing their sleeping brains.

This idea was there way before the show Severance. But the idea of a separate world that people go back and forth from with no memory of either place was right out of Severance. Also, I loved how the show started with Helly R. waking up on that conference room table. That’s what gave me the idea to start my story in the middle, en media res, and go back and forth.

This created unique challenges from the start because I had to set up two different timelines. Luckily, Scrivener has a cork board view that allows me to visualize the two timelines side by side. If you’re thinking of getting Scrivener, go for it—totally worth the money. I go into more detail about how I use Scrivener to organize my plot here.

The next piece that fell into place was The Sims world. In Severance, Mark S. enters his alternate world by going to work, which is a real place. The only thing that changes is that his brain shuts off memory of his personal life when he goes up that magical elevator.

For my story, the sleepers need a place to go while they’re asleep, so a computer simulation made perfect sense. And if they’re existing as Sims in a virtual world, the idea about a person getting cut in half and a guy with no junk is easy to pull off (no pun/peen intended).

It’s hard to imagine, after knowing how the story turns out, that these ideas existed completely separate in the beginning.

Next was my MC’s real life story (he didn’t have a name at this point). I went with the single dad raising a teen girl. No, the girl isn’t my daughter. Yes, they are both 14, but when I started she was only 12. Plus, Ava is nothing like my daughter so don’t try to draw any parallels.

I knew there was going to be some kind of drama between them, but I wasn’t sure what that was going to be. At first, he wasn’t an alcoholic, but he did have financial struggles and insomnia. An early title was actually Insomniac.

At first, the corporation was offering a solution to insomnia as their main schtick, but as the story developed, he needed a way to make extra money so I invented a financial incentive to motivate him to participate in the sleeper program. The multi-level marketing scheme idea was also in there at first, but I ended up taking that out. Maybe I’ll use it later.

So that’s how I do it.

And that’s where I am now.

Some of the ideas from the above list that didn’t get used in Sleepers are fair game. Here’s what I can tell you so far.

The setting will be in Austin, Texas (where I lived for 18 years). And it’s going to take place in the late 80’s where the main character is a kid in the foster care system (I worked in this field for many years in Austin).

I’ve been wanting to experiment with magical realism for some time. So I might play with the sinkhole to another dimension idea. And because it’s going to be an 80’s story, I’m thinking of what uniquely 80’s object (VHS tapes, He-Man figures, a Teddy Ruxpin, etc.) might be imbued with magical properties.

I also want to try to tie in historical references like the Exxon Valdez oil spill or the fall of the Berlin Wall. And of course, it will be rife with 80’s pop culture as well.

So that’s where I’m at. I’ll keep you updated as things progress.

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This has been another (long awaited) edition of How to Write Good: A Writer’s (Woefully Incomplete) Toolbox. If you found this helpful at all, you might want to check out these bangers:

Writing Dialogue

Use Good Words

How I Plot

Now it’s your turn to talk . . .

1. If you’re a writer, how do you start a new project?

2. Did this post make any sense if you haven’t read Sleepers? Because if so, we can remedy that.

3. What random ideas are you holding onto that might make it into your next project?