Current mood:	contemplative
Entry tags:	writing foo, writing wank

Idea-Sharing (Writing Nattering)
Here's something that came up on a message board that I frequent.

Someone wrote up an idea. They went publicly and said "Help me out. I have an idea here." I posted feedback, and someone didn't like my feedback. The original poster hasn't replied yet, and I'm wondering if he went away in a depressive moment and decided his idea was crap.

Here's the thing kids (not that anyone's a kid, but I just like saying that, hee). I struggled with this concept for a while until this realization struck me. You ready for it? Here we go:





If you think someone won't like your idea, don't share it.


There you go. Words of wisdom. Allow me to explain.

We are primarily writers, right? I don't know about you, but I can write all day based on the stories in my head. The moment someone asks me to tell a joke? I flounder. I am the WORST joke teller ever. I am also awful at summarizing things. Put me under pressure for a quick answer and I fold like a deck of cards. I'm terrible at elevator pitches, because I, as a speaker, am rambly and self-deprecating. (The irony here? I'm pretty good with queries)

I've tried to tell my husband about my book ideas and he gives me the Did-I-Marry-A-Crazy-Woman look. Why? Because i'm:

1) Bad at explaining myself under pressure
2) It's impossible to tell in two or three short sentences everything that is attached to the idea.

I don't know if other people's ideas start like this, but mine do. I get a very small germ of a lame idea. I fully acknowledge that it is probably lame sounding. I know if I say it aloud, I snicker at myself. My brain immediately latches onto said lame idea and begins to spin it out of control. I imagine this as a little bit like a spider that's just caught a grasshopper in her web. She grabs the grasshopper and stings it into submission. I grab the idea and latch onto it in my brain. The spider would then start to spin the grasshopper, over and over again in its arms, back and forth, building the webbing over it. That's what I'm doing with my story idea in my mind - layering it with all kinds of character tidbits and blurbs of dialogue, scene settings, stuff that I want to happen, quick quirky bits, whatever. I cannot possibly express any of this out on paper, because it's a soupy mess of a thousand inter-related concepts in my head, but it's huge and glorious and so full of potential. At the end of the task, the spider has a fully webbed-up grasshopper. Me, I have a fully formed book concept in my mind, ready to go.

It probably looks nothing like the initial concept I had in mind. There are so many layers and nuances covering it, but at the heart of it, there's still the dead bug (hah) we started with.

So trying to explain this? Tricky. Elevator pitching this? Not easy. A two line summary is never going to match up with the primordial soup of ideas that you have running around in your brain.

Let's play around with this a little, shall we?

The movie Titanic. The nutshell is a guy and a girl meet on a ship and their romance is interrupted when the ship goes down. Okay. We have the basic concept of the movie, right? But does it possibly convey the actual story itself? The affair of Jack and Rose (which is one of my favorites) or the gut-wrenching disaster of the Titanic itself? The characters that grow and change throughout the story? The uplifting ending? Nope. All you've got is a guy, a girl and a ship.

Or, here. Let's take a book. Pride and Prejudice. Hot rich guy and too-smart-for-her-own-good miss meet, instantly hate each other, and eventually fall back in love again. Does this sound like the Jane Austen classic? Well, yes. But does it possibly convey how utterly perfect Darcy is in his rich snobbishness, or how clever Lizzie is, or the fun, gossipy Regency society that makes the book what it is? What about Jane and Bingley? The dolt of a cousin that foils Mr. Darcy so well? Wickham? The parties and innuendo? No.

It is, quite simply, impossible to describe some ideas and make them sound as wonderful as they are in your head (or on the paper). So if you're struggling with it, or you tell a friend and they give you the "Nutjob" look, simply quit telling them what your story is about. Write the story anyhow. You're writing for YOU anyway, right? They can't possibly understand the wonderful story you've got in your head.

Here's another thing to think about. When you ask a friend/crit partner/stranger, "What do you think of my idea?" they're most likely going to think you're looking for one of two things:

1) An Attaboy ("OMG Jeff! That sounds so amazing! Write it! Write it now!!!!")
2) Someone to poke holes in it.

Much as we like attaboys, we're not really looking for those, right? So you're left with people poking holes in your story.

I hate it when people poke holes in my story. It could all be done perfectly innocently, but some of us are speshuler snowflakes than others (mecoughme) and once the idea starts to morph away from what we originally wanted...we don't want the idea anymore. I will be the first one to tell you that I can't share most of my story ideas before they hit the page. Because if someone doesn't like it? I'm right there stomping my feet and throwing a temper tantrum. And really, your friends are just trying to help you out, so they don't deserve the tantrum. You did ask them for help, after all.

So please, quit posting your ideas on the internet and asking for feedback. Save yourself the pain and write it anyhow. Tell us all to go F&#k ourselves. You'll feel much better for it.