To ask if you think my idea could work as a book/short story?

[TheHolyToast]

I'll be brief (incase I make it as a millionaire one day 😂).

I've been wanting to write a book for years and all my ideas fall flat. My latest one seems to be sticking with me.

It's about a teen going off the rails with a bunch of wrong 'un friends. At one point she looks at her life and wishes she could see into the future to see where she ends up. Then something happens (haven't figured that bit out yet!) and she wakes up 20 years into the future. She has no idea what has happened in the last 20 years and so goes off to find her previous friends. Does it sound like it's worth a shot?

Does it have to be about time travel? It just seems quite unrealistic if it is meant to be a serious book. Could it be something where she has a group of friends etc but then gets away from it all (maybe goes to uni) and then has to return to the area for a reason (maybe a parent is ill)? There are a few good books that are about rekindling youthful relationships and friendships as an adult and it works quite well. I like 'The sense of an ending' by Julian Barnes for instance which explores this.

Effective critiquing is not about throwing ideas everyone!!! the story will be all over the place!!! (otherwise we would just end up with fucking dragons and ninjas and the OP have lost the original inspiration)

There is lots of serious fantasy so there is nothing wrong with the original concept as long as it is well written.

It doesn't sound like fantasy as such though. Just like a relatively silly plot line. Seeing as the question was whether this plot line could work, I would say no, it is unlikely to work unless it was exceptionally well written. However, if the author wants to explore ideas of returning to a place or a relationship after some time away, that could work well. Again, so much will depend on the quality of the writing and the characterisation. OP, I would recommend that you look into doing a creative writing course or something which may give you some inspiration and ideas.

Yeah, agree the problem would be how to split the two eras. The reason I went more timeshift is that global amnesia is even more hideously overused as a plot device, and rather tedious. It's probably easier as a screenplay, as they seem to get away with mostly using visual effects rather than actually explaining why/how it's happening (which is a tad annoying, to be fair). Timeshift options tend to include alternate reality, out of body into future self, external disembodied observer of future self, reincarnation, curse, weird familial talent, supernatural event (usually at point of death), use of magical object, or use of scientific object. Or the really old prophetic dream approach. The problem is that any of those would involve genre crossing, which could really limit potential readership.

Hmmmm, I may be thinking about this too much.

Ahh yes this sounds really good! I'm excited about it for you!

This sounds so interesting. I would love to read it.

I've already read this. However there are only a finite number of plots, so it really depends on how well it's written.

goose What was the story you already read called?

the writer Jim butcher proves this point as he had a similar conversation about writing vs idea with a fan. The fan challenged Jim to write a book that mashes up Pokemon with the lost Roman Legion. Jim did so and its now a bestseller called Codex Alera.

Harry potter is not an original idea, it is good because of the richness of the world and the quality of the characters and plot

^ This is very interesting!

wow...I want to know more already. I'm trying to guess and fill in the blanks for my own entertainment. I'm thinking accident life threatening injuries she wakes up older goes about life.....then at the end she could have been in a coma the whole time with her older friends at her bedside.

Ha! I just came back to the thread to suggest the coma device, and been beaten to it. Though I might play it that she was rendered into the coma by a revenge attack by one of the friends she was trying to reconnect with, and thus both time zones were in the past, but were disconnected due to her altered brain functioning. Trapped in a non-functioning body, reliving again and again the events of the past, each time desperate to change them, but trapped within the loop.
Okay, that's probably slipping into horror.

Maybe time travel can be a legitimate thing. In the first part of the book society is on the brink of discovering time travel and as a nosy journalist she’s digging into the top secret governmental research in time travel.

Accidentally she gets zapped into the future where she finds out that everything thinks she’s died, and that the whole idea of time travel was abandoned because her tragic death put paid to any further research in the area. A whole cult has grown up around her death and part of the surprise is discovering how famous her death made her.

She has to convince everyone that she is who she says she is but no one believes her as there have been lots of imposters pretending to be her.

FFS, people. There have been half a dozen correct responses already in this thread which can be summarised as: "Ideas are ten a penny. That idea could make a good book or a terrible book. It's all in the writing."

Everyone else adding extra tweaks to the plot sketch or stating "I'd love to read this book" doesn't have the first clue what they're talking about. The book could easily be shit. Why would you want to read that?

Effective critiquing is not about throwing ideas everyone!!!

Effective critiquing needs something substantive to critique. Like, an actual synopsis, or better yet some writing. It also doesn't happen on random open forums like this. OP, try Absolute Write if you're serious about this.

You have what's called a premise here, not (yet) a story. It's also a premise that has been done elsewhere, so you would need to approach it in an original way, and your characters would have to be very well written to carry it instead.

Have a look at books about the snowflake method of planning and writing, which is a sort of halfway house between full on planning, and seat of the pantsing.

Writing a book is so so so much more than the premise. But you'll only know if you're any good if you start writing, and edit and edit and edit, and share, and edit and so on.

I’ve read a book a bit like no-cool’s version.
It involved a car crash and the girl who had been injured appeared to be reliving the events leading up to the events from different angles but in fact it was all in her head from inside a coma. I can’t remember the name of it now which will annoy me!

What about putting a horse in the story? I read a book about a horse once. Black, it was.( The horse, not the book.)

Just to let you know that MN has the copyright of anything you write on here so OP you might not realise but the ideas you have written down might now be taken up by a fiction writer who already has a publishing contract.

just saying.

There is no copyright in ideas, only execution. I can write and publish a book about a boy wizard at wizard school if I like.

@Onemorecornetto Fractured?

Yes! Thanks! Sorry for the spoiler-it wasn’t that great to be honest so I’ve saved people the trouble of reading it!

I once overheard the celebrated agent, Carol Blake (now sadly passed), talking to a couple of would be writers who had cornered her and were going into great detail about their plots, most of which they had written yet.
They asked her repeatedly whether she thought it was a great idea, and she said, repeatedly, that it sounded great, but the only way to tell if it was any good was to write it.
The truth is that you can make a fantastic book out of a very small idea or a dog of a book of a great idea.
As Carol said, it's all in the writing.
The only way to tell if you have a good book is to write it.
I hate to tell you this, but the idea is the easy bit. You now have to sit down and put it on paper. It takes patience and endurance. A large helping of both.
But so worth it. What if you are sitting on the greatest novel the world has ever seen and you don't write it. How would you feel then? Doesn't the world deserve to read it?
Just write it. Don't talk about it and don't show anyone until its done. That way you won't be afraid.
Good luck

Oh, and as there are, reputedly, only seven unique stories in the whole world, I wouldn't worry a bit about whether it has been done before. Your book will be different, because you wrote it.
it will be filtered through your brain, your experiences and opinions, your unique writing style.
I have read more than one book where a murder happens on page one and the detective with a troubled personal life solves the murder on page 300. Haven't you?
Doesn't worry publishers, agents or readers one little bit

I would read this.