Shiny New Idea Syndrome: How to Choose Which Story to Write

You’re probably familiar with the tug-of-war between the story you’re writing and the shiny new idea whispering in your ear. You might be mid-draft when another idea comes calling. It’s fun to imagine writing a fresh story—but it’s also the perfect recipe for distraction, which can get in the way of that all-important first draft.

Or maybe you haven’t started writing yet because you can’t pick between two equally brilliant story ideas. How on Earth do you decide which story deserves your time, focus, and energy?

In today’s article, No.1 bestselling author and The Novelry writing coach Clare Mackintosh shares the process she uses when it comes to deciding which story idea to write next. With over two million copies of her books sold, Clare really knows a thing or two about a great idea. So, let’s settle in and pick a winner...

Here’s some practical advice to help you decide on—and stick with—the right project.

Shiny new idea syndrome

New stories are exciting, aren’t they? They arrive without baggage, promising fun, endless possibilities, and none of the messy challenges you’re facing with your current work-in-progress (WIP). But chasing many ideas can leave you with dozens of unfinished stories and no completed books.

When you’re starting afresh with a notepad full of book ideas, it’s hard to visualize what you’ll feel like when you’re 30,000 words in. Will you still be excited to write this story, or will it feel like a chore? And what about the market: is one idea more commercial than your other ideas? Maybe you should flick back through your notebook and pick a different story...

John Steinbeck once compared ideas to rabbits:

You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
—John Steinbeck

The trick isn’t to stop the rabbits from multiplying—at The Novelry, we want to spark our fellow writers’ creativity, not dampen it—but to hone our ability to decide which story idea to write next.

The flow cycle and why clarity matters

Writers often talk about being ‘in the flow,’ that magical state where words pour out effortlessly. New ideas can disrupt this flow, pulling your focus away from the hard work of finishing your current story. By establishing some clarity (why this story, why now?), you can reaffirm your commitment to your WIP and ease the transition into flow.

To achieve this clarity and commitment, we’re going to split our decision-making into two sections: emotional and commercial. Tackle them in any order; we’ll bring them together at the end. I find it helpful to write down my answers, journaling my thoughts as I go. Often, when I can’t find the answer in my head, I find it on the page.

Emotional decision-making

Why does this idea matter?

Ask yourself why this idea feels important. Set aside (for now) your perfectly honed elevator pitch and look at how the story feels in your heart.

• Does it align with your passions or your life experience?
• Are you writing on a topic that enrages or enthralls you?
• If you were never allowed to start writing this story, how would that feel?

Secondly, consider why this idea will matter to readers. Again, we’re not looking for the ‘publishing answer’ but a sense of something deeper.

• Will this story resonate with a particular community?
• Does it tackle universal themes of a life experience, like love or loss?
• If no one ever got to read this story, what hole would it leave in their lives?

Thirdly, does this idea give you The Tingle? The Tingle is an extremely unscientific yet wholly real phenomenon that manifests differently in every writer. For me, it’s a gleeful grin that appears when I think of writing a twist that will blow readers’ minds.

Each of the writing coaches at The Novelry experiences The Tingle in a different way. For Emylia Hall, there’s always a ‘heat’ around a winning story idea.

It’s hard to describe, but the idea feels fully formed, almost like a book I’m already reading or a TV show I’m already watching. And it feels like I’m going toward the idea rather than the idea coming to me.
—Emylia Hall

Piers Torday describes it as a ‘seed.’

If the seed takes hold and suddenly tendrils of characters, ideas, and worlds are wrapping themselves around my every waking thought, then I know it’s a goer.
—Piers Torday

Character is king (or queen)

It’s helpful to consider your story ideas in turn and take a long, hard look at each protagonist.

• Why are you drawn to them?
• If they disappeared, would you miss them?
• If you take them out of the context of your story and drop them into another situation, do you still know how they would behave? Or are they suddenly shapeless, existing only in the dimension you’ve created for them?

Here are some exercises to try while we consider our story ideas from an emotional point of view.

Exercise 1

Imagine the multiple story ideas in your head are now published books. Visualize yourself sitting on a train opposite someone reading one of your books. Which one is it?

Exercise 2

Write a text message exchange between you and the main character in your story in which you’re planning a weekend away. Then, repeat the exercise for the protagonists in all your ideas. Was it easier to talk to one character than another? Who did you want to carry on chatting with? Which character do you most want to spend a year of your life writing?

Emotional connections are crucial to great writing, helping to guard against ‘paint by numbers’ books written to meet market trends. If a story idea doesn’t spark joy or intrigue for you, it’s unlikely to sustain your enthusiasm through the challenges of the entire writing process. Publishing is driven by passion, filtering all the way from editor to sales team to bookseller to reader. For that passion for a story to remain as strong at the end as it was at the beginning, it has to infuse your whole being.

However, publishing is also a business, and at The Novelry, we make it our  business to know what agents, editors, and readers want from a good story. So, when you’re in the fortunate position of being able to decide which story idea to choose out of several, it pays to use your business brain to help select which creative writing idea to tackle next.

Commercial decision-making

Career goals

Where do you want your writing career to be in ten years’ time? Perhaps there’s an author you’d like to emulate or an award you’d love to be nominated for. Maybe you can see yourself speaking at conferences or schools, helping writers from the next generation.

Now, take out each of your shiny ideas in turn.

• Which one moves you closer to your goal?
• Which is most aligned with your personal path to success—whatever success means to you?

What’s standing in your way?

We talk a lot about creating obstacles for our characters, but there are obstacles for writers, too. For each story idea, make a list of the challenges you foresee. For example, when I came up with the idea for Hostage, a locked-room thriller set on a 20-hour non-stop flight, I quickly realized it would involve extensive research (although sadly not a tax-deductible trip to Sydney!).

Perhaps you face similar practical challenges—an expensive research trip or an interview with an elusive expert—or maybe your obstacles are more nebulous. Is Idea 1 so personal it could feel exposing? Might Idea 2 be too controversial? Write down everything you can think of. Do these challenges put you off this story idea or make you more determined to write it?

(Note: sometimes, when writers do this, the potential challenges become fully formed. A couple of years ago, I jotted down an idea for a thriller, declaring it an ‘impossible twist to pull off.’ Never one to be defeated, that book is publishing next year, so you’ll be able to judge for yourself!)

How clear is your concept?

We place a lot of emphasis on a story’s hook—the multipurpose tool that will sell your book to agents, editors, and readers, as well as distilling the story to its essence, which helps you stay on track during the writing process. If you’re struggling to pin down your concept, it might be simply a case of finding the right words, but it might also be because your concept isn’t (yet) strong enough or you’re missing a magic ingredient. As John le Carré famously said:

The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the DOG’S mat is a story.
—John le Carré

Your writing coach can help with both these issues, or you can test your pitches in our writing groups at the Story Clinic or in our private writers’ community.

Exercise 3

‍Sketch out the front page of a newspaper or magazine (not an art assignment—don’t worry about what it looks like!). Now, write headlines for each of your story ideas in the most attention-grabbing way possible. Is one easier to write than another? If you picked up that publication, which story would you turn to first?

A model to help you decide

You’ve thought about the emotional elements and considered the commercial ones, but what if you still can’t decide which idea will be your next story? What if both (or more) story ideas are tugging at you, demanding to be written?

It’s time to get analytical with my patented (may not actually be patented ) 5C Decision-Making Model.

The 5C Decision-Making Model

Draw a simple table with six rows and as many columns as you have ideas. If you’re evaluating three story ideas, for example, your table will look like this:

Give each story idea a score between 1 and 5 (5 = the highest) in the following categories—without giving the same score twice!

1. Character: How strongly do you want to hang out with the protagonist?
2. Commitment: On a scale of one-night-stand to marriage, how committed do you feel to this project?
3. Career: How well does this idea align with your career goals?
4. Concept: How ‘attention-grabbing’ is the hook? How easy is it to sum up?
5. Connection: How strongly does this idea resonate with you emotionally? How much will it matter to potential readers?

Tally your scores so your chart looks something like this:

You might see a clear winner, but the results might also be more nuanced. Did you ever know with absolute certainty what the right decision was—only after you’ve made the wrong one? The takeaway from this exercise is not the scores themselves; it’s how they make you feel.

• Are you outraged that Idea 2 scored so low when its plot is so brilliant ? Look again at your emotional connection—you might care more about writing that story than you thought.
• Do you feel weirdly flat about Idea 3 ‘winning’? Ask yourself why that is, then revisit the emotional elements of the decision-making process. Use your scores to identify the elements of your story idea which need strengthening.

Staying monogamous

Once you’ve chosen your next writing project, how do you give it your full attention without making eyes at the other story waiting in the wings?

Revisit your ‘why.’ Remind yourself what drew you to the story in the first place and why your emotional connection to it is so strong.

Keep a notebook specifically for projects-in-waiting, and when you sense another story calling to you, write a ‘holding note’ for it—including bullet points on a few scenes if you’ve been picturing them. I find that if I acknowledge an idea and promise to return to it, it will happily leave my head and sit in a notebook until I’m ready. If I try to ignore it, it shouts louder to get my attention. (If you have children or pets, this will be a familiar experience!)

If you’re feeling the lure of a different idea midway through your current story, remind yourself that the grass isn’t always greener. It’s very common for novels to get hard-going around the 30k mark, and the chances are, you’ll find the same thing happens with your alternate idea! Sometimes, we just have to knuckle down and keep writing.

Playing the field

That said, there are times when projects cross over (I’m currently drafting one novel and editing another), or you find time to write two (or more!) at once. If that’s the case, here are a few ways to keep focused.

Contrasting stories tend to work best. This stops the ‘bleed’ of narrative voice or character traits from one novel into another and uses different parts of your brain, which helps with your creative energy. Similarly, working on different stages (plotting one and writing another) keeps the two projects distinct.

Establish specific times or locations in which you write each story. For example, write one in the morning and one in the evening, or one in your office and one at the kitchen table. Forming an association with a particular time or place can help you find your way quickly back into the novel.

You might also try writing on a different device or writing one of your stories longhand. I’m currently writing a side project in a notebook, and it feels so distinct from my thrillers—written at my desk—that my voice is coming out quite differently. I know several authors who create playlists for each new book, the playing of which creates a Pavlovian response and focuses their mind on the story in front of them.

Finally, when you switch from one project to another, be intentional about it. Don’t stop when it gets tricky, but at a previously decided time. Take a break before moving to the second story—a quick walk around the block or a few minutes of stretching—to signal to your creative brain that you’re now writing something different.

Writing all the way to The End

Choosing which story to write is never easy, but the goal isn’t to find the ‘perfect’ idea. It’s to commit to one story that excites you, challenges you, and keeps you writing. Whether you stick with one project or juggle a few, the most important thing is to get to the end.

The next time a shiny idea beckons, take a moment to reflect. Is it the right story for right now? Or is it a distraction; an excuse to run away from a hard bit in your current novel?

So, what’s your next great story? And more importantly, are you ready to start writing?

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