Too Many Ideas

Writers are nothing if not egotists. We all tend to think that all of our ideas are wonderful. As you go on, I think you learn to spot a thin or derivative idea and exercise a deal of self-restraint. Not every idea is worth pursuing; good writing is about quality, surprise, content, not quantity. It is an extreme form of arrogance to imagine that everything that comes into your head is worthy of other people's attention.

I've decided very definitely to wait on ideas - you get them in the middle of the night and think that you should start writing them, but this quite often ends up a mistake. For me, it works better if I let the story fizz about in my head for a bit. If I'm not hearing the opening paragraphs continually repeat in my head a week later, then it wasn't really a story at all. (This may explain why, in the immortal words of a thoughtcafe critic, I have a good opening, a poor end and no middle-game at all...) You learn something from every piece you write, but the biggest thing you learn are which pieces are just dying on the page no matter how enthusiastic you feel about them.

I once had a brilliant (so I thought) idea for a novel. It was a time travel novel, and in it the premise is that a person is taken from each decade starting with the 1950s, so you would have a bloke from 1958, a girl from 1965, a girl from 1977 and a bloke from 1984, and these four people would have to meet each other and get on with each other in the time machine that is run by this old bloke of indeterminate age, but clearly older than the four people in his charge. Ecah person would then find out much later in the novel why they could not return to their own time, in fact the time traveller had saved them from a terminal end. The 1958 bloke was stabbed to death in a fight The 1965 girl died in a car crash The 1977 girl committed suicide The 1984 bloke was electrocuted while playing on stage in a band. As each member of the group was introduced the characters would have to adjust. The fifties bloke of course had a much more laid back viewpoint as he had no knowledge of the times forward of him. The 1977 girl though had knowledge of the fifties and sixties, and so on. It was to be an exercise in how people of different times get along and react to each other. Curiously the 1977 girl was a punk (no surprise there) but she got on very well with the 1958 bloke, but disliked the 1965 girl who fancied the 1984 bloke, and the 1958 bloke fancied the 1965 girl, and the 1984 bloke fancied the 1977 girl. Thats how it would have sort of middled out as, then alliances change as they find out more about each other. The 1958 bloke realises that the 1977 girl is actually very insecure and confused and that the 1965 girl he thinks he likes is very snobby and aloof. The 1984 bloke thinks Paul Weller is god, and didnt he write a song about all this? He eventually falls for the posh 1965 girl. I am still deciding whether my viewpoint as author would be from the 1984 bloke or the 1958 bloke. In fact the story might work even better if four people were to collaborate on it. OK, thats my idea for the now. :)

Mind you someone would have to write the time travellers part. I forgot about that, and he is like the key person without whom nothing esle would have happened. So it would need five people. Aha :)

I tend to have very prolific months and then go into a state of writing hibernation, and then suddenly go off again. The times when I tend to stop writing are when I've got too much else on my mind, like a huge piece of coursework, or an exam. Luckily now it is the holidays so I'm more relaxed and ideas are starting to flow again. But what with the dreaded GCSEs next year, I think my writing's about to go through a rough patch. :(

Oh, I've already learnt that lesson, Tom! I've pretty quickly learnt to discard ideas based on little more than whimsies and foibles of my imagination. I file the basic compotents of the ideas away for later use though, like characters, names, elements of the plot etc. I generally find a use for them elsewhere, especially characters. I was discussing with a fellow writer the other night that every writer has one Great Idea, that really is the culmination of all your talent and skill as a writer. Doesn't necessarily mean all your other writing is shyte, but that one idea will define the rest of your writing. I couldn't decide if that was a cheerful or depressing thought.

But on a lighter note: Viggo Mortissen....PHWOAR

So what was Shakespeare's one Great Idea ? Agree that a lot of writers produce one book that is head and shoulders above everything else they write (Clockwork Orange, Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies), and others plough a similar furrow over and over; but I do think there are exceptions, authors who manage to come up with breadth and interest throughout their output. From what I've read so far of Steinbeck, I think he might be a possibility, Orwell is someone I would put in that category along with Margaret Atwood, Alan Moore, Jose Saramago, Jim Crace.

That's a lighter note??? Quite worrying I'd say. But I have far too many ideas to ever write everything I should. I tend to put them down in whatever book I'm scribbling in inside the back cover and then look at them whenever my pen stops. But I have about three stories, a vague idea about a novel and a couple of reviews on the go and I have no idea when/if they will be finished. I'm also meant to be working on some proposals but they're bottom of the pile today.

Viggo Mortensen. There's an anagram in there somewhere.

I have tons of notes and of the such. There's a drawer under my bed which is just overflowing with scraps of paper full of character names, synopsisisisisises...synopsi...synopsises... and so forth. In a way it's frustrating, because I want to write all the stories I come up with, but I get distracted by new ideas. And then I forget the older ones, and they're never heard of again, until about five years down the line when I tidy under my bed.

Half a great idea would be nice, Harry. You can certainly see the one great idea in some writers. Dickens wrote very much out of his childhood traumas and it could be said that he wrote the same book over and and over again. But there's an incredible richness to his rewriting, to the different ways he approached the subject of the orphan, the child cast loose unfairly into the world.

Viggo Mortensen: Gnomes get rovin' But I could be wrong.

Yes. Definitely. So I have about 6 projects on the go at a time, and try to distil all ideas into the format of each. If I react creatively to piety and propoganda (particularly American propoganda) concerning morality, justice, honour, decency etc. etc. etc. it usually goes in a letter from Sisyphus to Balthazar - my friend and fellow writer, Sean Mayer, is to compile these letters into Balthazar's diary, which is one of HIS many projects - and a savage attack on modern values, which is always quite an interesting and handy thing to have for putting your anti-establishment ideas into. When I'm being self-analytical and despairing at the demons and desires that command me, I'll usually write a poem about it, which can go in Hats Off, since that's meant to be a declaration of honesty. When it's politics or freedom the absurd that strikes me I usually throw it in The Foot of the Stage, in one of the dialogue sequences, exploring the idea through the character's opinions. If it's a sudden urge to do some historical story-telling, I usually write a song, and lace it with some kind of obscure relevance to more personal, modern situations. That leaves 'Manley & I', which is the very best ideas absorber in the world ever. When I have an idea for a short story, I simply pick a few characters from the University landscape I've already created - whether it's one of the five harpies, or the UEA flasher - and set them up in their new environment. The resulting piece merely slots in as a diversion from the diary style, and I like the way it all fits together. No doubt no publisher in the world would be as happy with it as I am though.

No.

O, Tom! You *are* a rum chap!

Shakespear's One Great Idea was picking up a pen (or quill) for the first time :)

So true.

Interviewer: "You haven't written anything as good as Catch 22." Joseph Heller: "Who has?"

Ari years ago I used to be like you have described and have still got pile's of A4 sheets all writen on, edited and cast a side. When I think of the hours I used to spend writing going in for competitions ect, now sad to say I can't even think up the ideas...

Ideas occur to me at awkward moments, usually when I nothing to write them down on, or when I have the ideas wing away, like a small butterfly I saw flying yesterday afternoon. I have various sets, like Henstoat has, which I use for different purposes. Most of the stuff I write is verse so I only have a few stories. I tend to write online, while connected to the web, as it adds immediacy to my writing I find. And while on the subject: Galadriel is a bit scarey, and seems very powerful indeed, I guess if I met her I wouldn't know what to say, whereas Arwen seems more approachable, and I could see her being a good friend. :) I like writing about people and how they get on with each other, this always fascinates me.

Ideas come easy. Good ideas come hard.

can't disagree with that. i'm not great at having ideas, full stop. not sure i've ever had a GOOD idea. i find my own writing occurs as an overspill of life - those aspects of my personality that can find no outlet in the physical world build and build until they break their banks in written form. then it all goes quiet for a bit. *throws green baize cloth over abc's 'endlessly talkative' one to prevent another outburst.*

I was only going to say that my most fruitful period for ideas is the dead of night, when I have to scrabble around for a pen and notebook and write nothin remotely legible. That could have made a perfectly good portable snooker table, you know. Or a picnic rug.

Imagine if something you had dreamt up was in fact your One Great Idea, and somebody said, "That's your Great Idea, everything you write afterwards will be a pale imitation of the Great Idea you have..." I guess if I never had a Great Idea I would still write, it would never be brilliant but I would still write.

I like to think that all my ideas are good in essence. In their raw form, they're strokes of genius. It's just when I transfer them to paper that they go wrong! I also find myself waking up in the middle of the dead going "OH!" and desperately reaching for pens and paper. Of course, when I wake up the next morning, I've generally forgotten the fabulous idea, and my cryptical comments - "Misty forest, secret crow watching? run aways", for example, which was Monday's little jewel - make no sense to anyone, especially me.

I did that once Ari, thinking I could create a story out of a dream, I woke up and scribbled down a series of words relating to what i had dreamt, and the following morning I looked at the words and they didnt mean much. But since our subconscious keeps working all the time, and usually has free rein during sleep, I suspect that some ideas are the mind trying to rationalise input received the previous day. I also find that certain songs or music will give me ideas about something to write.

I oftentimes have dreams that I think at the time would make a good short story. I drempt some wierd apolcalyptic dream where I fell asleep in a school classroom and I could tell which classmates were going to ascend into heaven because they were missing from their seats. I woke up and tried to warn the people who didn't disappear. I thought it was brilliant at the time but now I'm like --- "oooooooookay!" I get interesting ideas when I take a long walk or a long drive somewhere with no music or other such distractions. Dreams are a good inspiration as well, but I can't recall a time when I actually used a dream. (Who knows, maybe I'll come out with a spiritual/apocalyptic short story sometime in the future.)