Ideas. I just got one. Is it going to cause a rash? Or is it fatal? What do I do with it now that I have it? Oh noes, I just got a bad idea, how do I get rid of it?
First. How do I get my ideas?
I will usually get a single idea or a scene or a character.
In Felix the Swift, it was the idea of a thief coming back out of retirement to do one last job.
In The Long Journey Home, it was the idea of a guy coming back to his hometown five years after a society collapsing disaster. The idea was of how does conflict and trauma change a person.
Are these ideas run of the mill standard bullshit.
My one word answer.
Maybe.
Those ideas are so broad and vast in nature that they can go any which way. If you give that initial idea to a hundred authors, you would have a hundred different stories.
Once that idea pops into your head. You must incubate it. I say ‘must’ as it has to happen. If you start writing an idea before you incubate it, then there is a distinct possibility that it might be crap.
Incubating is how you sort the good and from the bad.
In medicine, when you get certain diseases, they must take a sample of the disease and grow it in a lab. Once disease has grown, they can tell what it is. The small sample is not enough to determine anything.
Translating that into the realm of story ideas, the little idea that pops into your head has to be grow. You have to use brain cycles on it. You need to expand on the idea, add details in you head, ask questions about it. Fill in holes. See how it forms.
You can either write it all down in note form or just keep it in your head. It depends on how well you remember stuff. I can keep multiple story ideas in my head at once, some people can’t. If you can’t keep it together in your head, write it down. You are big people. you decide what works best with you.
I do, however, have a story idea thresh hold. Once that story idea has a passed that thresh hold without me determining that it is utter shite, then I will write it into once of my hundred of 80 page cheap note books. I will write down all of the info that I can so that it is saved.
If you start to incubate it and then you realize that it is very similar to a TV show or a movie, or you determine that it is utter shite from another way, the best thing to do is to realize that it is shite and tell yourself that. Get it out of your head, put the notebook away.
You may find that that story idea will come back to you at a later date in a different form. It may or may not be any good. It is for you to decide.
Anyways, lots more to talk about, but it’ll have to wait until later.
Cheers
N.A. Pedde
Atomic Slingshot Press 