Ideas Are The Easy Part

One of the tritest questions to ask a writer is “where do you get your ideas?” Ideas come from everywhere. The idea for my latest novel, Einstein’s War, came to me while sitting on the couch. The reason it’s a trite question is that ideas are the easiest part of writing.

For example, consider Chapter 5 of my current work. Captain Pamela Akers has discovered aliens, or at least alien space ships. This has introduced a number of problems into my novel, none of which were even addressed in my initial idea. In the planned work, the aliens are going to attack the humans. When this attack happens, I want to have Captain Akers on the ground, while her son, 3rd Mate Tim Akers, has to take her ship out of orbit. The rest of the novel will be them trying to reunite. So, my problems are (in no particular order):

1. I need to have a believable reason for the humans to not investigate the aliens. Or if they do investigate, I just added a subplot and characters that I didn’t plan on.

2. I need to have a believable reason for Pam Akers to be on the ground. Right now, what’s coming to me is that she decides to appeal to higher political authority. This requires me to:
a. Develop a political system for the humans
b. Explain (or at least understand) why the humans decided to settle on this planet.

3. I’ve been writing this book with one alien and one human chapter. Well, my next alien chapter is the initial attack from their point of view. What do my aliens do in the meantime while their author is floundering about?

All this will just get me to the “commit” point of the book, about 25% in. Like I said, ideas are the easy part.