So far in your course to Write Your Novel life has seemed pretty easy. All you had to do was pick a genre and come up with the whispers of an idea. Well the real work starts when you have to build your idea past its LOCK potential into something worth more than a few paragraphs. The first step is to choose the running theme for your book. It could be something as simple as romance in the face of tribulation or the breakdown of family values but something unique and interesting will peak your reader's attention. The theme will help you plump up the plot, the setting and the characters. In building your idea, mind mapping is particularly important as you try to get your character from one end of the book to the other. More about theme and building your idea can be found at Plumping Your Idea.

 As for my writing well I did discard the quest and the dreams and decided to merge genres so its going to be fantasy fiction with some elements of mystery. The ideas are coming in fast and I'm already world building even as I plump up the idea. Naskel/Shen is one ridiculous village - I can tell you, and Itai (or is it Naina?) really doesn't fit in. Oh yes...the poor girl is a non - magical in a magical world (sigh!). I really feel I should give her a magical object just to balance things - but that's still up in the air.