How To Choose What To Write

I got another great question from the StoryADay community this week and I thought you might be interested in eavesdropping on my answer.

But first, in Notes from Julie’s Desk, I’m going to confess that my own ambitions for One-Story September were derailed by sickness.

 Now that I’m on the mend, however, I can definitively assure you that—even if you start late—the One-Story method is paced to make sure you can still succeed. (Here on Day 5 I’m still fleshing out my story idea, but it’s proving extremely motivating to know I still have 25 days to work on this story, and a guided process to keep me on track. Want to join us? You can still do that, here.)

How To Choose What To Write

The question, paraphrased, was,

“I have so many ideas. How am I supposed to pick which one to work on? Or should I maybe try to incorporate them all into one piece? I don’t know…and then I get paralyzed.”

Sound familiar?

My answer went something like this.

Firstly, good for you for diagnosing the problem—that’s Step 1 in finding a solution. 

Secondly, this probably is much more common than you probably think. 

I firmly believe it’s one of the reasons a lot of writers get more done during challenges like StoryADay and when they have an upcoming deadline for a writing contest or themed anthology: the lack of choice is freeing.

OK, but without an external voice forcing your hand, how DO you choose?

The first thing to understand is that any choice you make is only a choice for now. 

That’s certainly easier to live with (especially during something like One-Story September) than the idea that you have to make the right choice, for all time.

Choose. 

Experiment. 

Examine what happened (and how you felt about it), and then 

Make another choice and run another experiment.

Does that really work?

“Creativity is not some privileged kind of thought free from constraint. Rather, it is normal problem-solving, just directed at a specific and interesting problem.” – Herbert A. Simon, quoted in Inside The Box by David Epstein.

This is both key and incredibly encouraging. Talent is not required. Genius is not required. A world-changing inspirational idea is not required. Just a problem that interests you, and your willingness to keep noodling on it.

There is no ‘right’ answer to ‘what should I write?’. Ever.

There are only these questions:

  • What specific idea do I find interesting, right now?
  • Can give it to a character and have it cause problems for them?
  • Can I sustain my interest in solving each subsequent wrinkle created as my character begins to tackle the main problem…until I reach the end?

Bonus tip: you won’t know if the answer is ‘yes’ until you get out of the abstract thinking phase and into the concrete ‘ideas on paper’ stage.

A short story—even a novel—has an end. The process of writing it has an end.. Any story you start should not become a life-long project.

You are experimenting. You are problem-solving.

So just pick something, and throw problems at your characters until they are smart enough to solve them (potentially happy ending), or have demonstrated that they can’t (potentially bleak ending).

Final caveat: the lure of the new idea is strong, especially when the problem-solving in your current project gets hard. Resist the urge to believe that you’re missing out on a ‘better’ idea, or a better story and abandon the one you’re working on. There’s nothing wrong with switching between projects if that makes your brain happy, but don’t believe the lie that there is a perfect idea, a perfect story out there waiting for you. Just keep solving problems.

Keep writing,

P. S. I’m serious: if you want to be writing and could use a framework to get you through this month, consider jumping in—fashionably late—to the One-Story Challenge.

How do you choose what to write? Does your method differ? Leave a comment here, and let me know.

The Short Story Advantage

If you’re here because you clicked through from my email saying: ‘interested in writing One Story along with me, thanks! Leave a comment, letting us know why you are excited about focusing on one story, for a month, or what you’ve achieved in past challenges.

“But I want to write novels! Why do people keep trying to get me to write short stories?!”

I hear you.

I used to simply answer: “If you don’t want to write short stories, you don’t have. Go, write your novels. Be free!”

Learning About Learning

Then I watched as thousands of writers struggled to get past the 30% mark of their novels, and got discouraged.

And I went and learned a few things about how we, as humans learn.

Turns out: it’s all very well to try new things, but unless you’re able to observe the consequences of your actions, you can’t know if what you’re trying is working.

Telling a story over the course of a novel might take you months or years.

Telling a story over the course of a short story is much faster.

  • You get to see and feel what ‘idea generation’, and ‘writing a bold beginning’ and ‘getting through the middle’ and ‘managing the turn towards the end’ all feel like.
  • You begin to be able the feel a story taking shape and tell if it’s correctly proportioned.
  • You get to find experiment with different styles and genres
  • You get to find out–more often and more quickly–what readers experience when you write different types of stories, characters, endings, and language.

In short, you develop your craft skills more quickly when short stories are part of your practice because you:

  • Experiment more often and more freely,
  • Experience the consequences of those experiences for your characters, stories, and readers.
  • Can adjust course or abandon experiments more often, and try something new.

And don’t even get me started on the value of a having ‘low cost of entry’ ways for new readers to experience your writing and discover they love you; or the marketing options that open up for you if you have ‘teasers’, ‘interludes’, or ‘reader magnets’ in short form, to invite readers in or keep them interested while you’re finishing off the next novel.

You Don’t Have To Love Short Stories…

…but it’s a really great idea to incorporate them into your writing life

(There’s a reason MFA programs feature them so heavily.).

I still hate the idea of them being ‘just for practice’, but the reality is that—even though they can be so much more—they actually are really good practice in storytelling.

Fiction Is Hard, Even For Good Writers

If you’re a good writer you might have ended up in a profession that has writing as a part of it, but here’s a hard truth: it may have trained you out of being good at writing fiction.

  • If a life in journalism has stunted your ability to spin out a longer tale
  • If you’ve been away from fiction writing for a while
  • If your day job requires you to manipulate language to sell things to people, or write persuasive copy, or organize technical manuals

…coming back to fiction can be humbling. Being able to string words together in pretty sentences is only one of the skills you’ll need.

Short stories are a great way to level up in all those other skills.

Yes, you may want to write novels—you may have started or even finished a couple.

But if you are finding it slow-going, consider spending a little time with me here, in the One Story Challenge – The Whole Story Edition, coming live in September 2026.

This Is Not The StoryADay Challenge

In fact, it’s kind of the anti-StoryADay Challenge.

I’ve run this twice before, each time forcusing on a different fiction skill (“Show, Don’t Tell”, and “Mastering The Middle”).

Each time, I’ve led a group of writers through a month of bite-sized tasks that took them through the process of

  • coming up with a new story idea
  • fast-drafting a version of the story
  • sticking with it throughout the month to craft a complete story they’re proud of.

Along the way they’ve benefitted from:

  • 3-4 small lessons and prompts a week, to keep them on track
  • A community of other writers going through the process at the same time
  • Bonus writing sprints and Q&A sessions with me
  • Built-in ‘Rest and Recharge’ days every week
  • The limited container of a single month, to create just enough urgency that you get the story finished.

The Whole Story

This year the challenge is focused on ‘The Whole Story’, which means we’ll be making sure each part of the story adds up to a well-structured whole.

By the end of the month you’ll have learned a whole lot about your writing, your skills, your interests, and you’ll have proved to yourself that you can finish, and learn from writing a single story — one that is more complex than the kind of one-day Flash Fiction we often create during StoryADay May.

Sound interesting? Sign up for updates. It’s coming soon.

storyaday graphic divider