The Main Idea

I forgot to mention that before I started “plantsing,” I had ideas bouncing around in my head for some time. I decided to write the current novel because the main idea of a potential life ending comet strike that turns out to be an alien invasion was interesting. However, in this story religious extremists use the alien attack as an opportunity to work against the government, and sabotage the efforts of the main characters.

The main idea for my story had to be good enough to sustain a novel length of 75,000 words or more. I just couldn’t run out of things to write about. The ideas also had to be interesting enough to keep the reader entertained from beginning to end. Since this is my first book, I also had to shelve ideas that were too big for me to handle as a debut novel.

After that, I began creating my main protagonist and the other characters. I had to build a compelling life arc for each the main character as well. I struggled to find a way to make the protagonist believable and compelling, and yet have flaws we can all relate to. I then created an antagonist and tried to find ways to humanize him while making him formidable.