Where do YOU get your ideas?
“Where do you get your ideas?” is a question I get asked quite a bit. There are plenty of answers ranging from the odd: “From the Easter Bunny,” to the obscure: “A galaxy far, far away.”
I feel that a lot of the time, it’s not so much the lack of any ideas that holds up the fiction writer but rather, the lack of an idea the writer feels is “good” enough. His skin may be green, but he’s still just not alien enough. Idea tossed. Her world has two suns, but I don’t think that’s interesting enough. Idea tossed.
Let me just take the time to say… STOP doing that!
Rule #1 about writing (fiction especially): It’s highly unlikely you are going to be satisfied with any of your work on the first try. You may be satisfied with it as a first try, but that’s about as far as it goes most of the time.
The same goes not only for completed stories but for partial stories and even the ideas floating around in your head waiting to be written on that restaurant napkin. The sad thing is that a lot of writers so easily throw away their ideas without giving them the draft process they give to ideas they give the chance to develop.
My little tip of the day is to, if you haven’t already, start your own misc. file/file 13/planes, trains, and odd inspirations file. You may not use Xan from the land of Caa for two years, but ideas aren’t weeds - they need encouragement. If you keep snuffing them out (even if that one creature does have three eyes…), you’re stifling your creativity flow. Soon enough you’ll get so used to telling yourself no that ideas which could be developed into the next best seller will be stifled before they fully bubble up to the surface.
Stop caring about what’s “good” or “bad” and just start having fun. You’ll be creating a world, or at least lives and destinies, so relax and have a little fun. Most importantly, though, don’t let anything go to waste.
October 28th, 2006 at 8:40 am
A good piece of advice. I used to toss out ideas all the time, which I felt weren’t good enough-only to think of something later, which would have added a lot to the original idea. Only I can’t fully remember the original idea, because I thought it wasn’t good enough and didn’t write it down! I finally got tired of that, and now write down everything!
October 28th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Oh, the notebooks I have…
*Very* good advice, indeed.
October 29th, 2006 at 12:34 am
Thank you.
I wasn’t sure if anyone would agree with me in this, but it’s something I feel strongly about.
Write down every little bitty thing and see how much good it’ll start doing you.