What's the Best Story Idea You Never Wrote?

[Guest]

Have you ever had a great story idea, but couldn't make it settle down on the page?

What do you do when you are halfway into a story and you realize it's going nowhere?

Have you ever run across an idea you thought would make a great story but you knew you couldn't or wouldn't write it?

What do you do with those ideas? Tell them to other authors? Throw them into a drawer and forget them? What happens to poor, orphan story ideas?

 

[rgraham666]

Have you ever had a great story idea, but couldn't make it settle down on the page?

What do you do when you are halfway into a story and you realize it's going nowhere?

Have you ever run across an idea you thought would make a great story but you knew you couldn't or wouldn't write it?

What do you do with those ideas? Tell them to other authors? Throw them into a drawer and forget them? What happens to poor, orphan story ideas?

Got two like that right now.

One, if I do a good job of writing it, is going to cause the reader's gorge to rise. It's a horror story with the worst type of monster in it. Haven't even started to put that one down on paper yet.

The other I've started writing, but the central character is such a complete psycopath, I can't spend more than twenty minutes a week in his presence.

 

[3113]

An idea's not a story

Have you ever had a great story idea, but couldn't make it settle down on the page?

I've had a lot of ideas that wouldn't settle down...but the best idea I ever had, the one where I said, "I've got to write this before someone else does!"--that one settled right down.

What do you do when you are halfway into a story and you realize it's going nowhere?

Raymond Chandler's answer to that question was: "Bring in men with guns." And I think he was right. When it's going nowhere, it's time for a change. A new character comes brusting through the door. The location changes radically.

I happen to very much like Pixar's "Monsters Inc." The entire story takes place almost entirely at this factory where the monsters work. But at one point, where the story is at that "halfway" and running out of gas spot--the monsters get tossed out a door and end up in the Himalayas. Entirely new setting...leading to an entirely new delemma, new feelings, and deeper characterization--ephiphanies, etc.

When the story's going nowhere, it's time for the writer to play God and throw the characters a curve ball. Time for men with guns to break down the door.

Have you ever run across an idea you thought would make a great story but you knew you couldn't or wouldn't write it? What do you do with those ideas? Tell them to other authors? Throw them into a drawer and forget them? What happens to poor, orphan story ideas?

Not every great idea I have is one that I feel I am meant to write. I might, for example, have a brilliant idea for a baseball story...but I seriously doubt I could write a good baseball story. I've had ideas which I felt were better suited for other writers, and so I have passed them onto those writers. And vice versa, there are ideas that other writers have had that I've thought, "I could do that so much better!" And I've sometimes written my own version of them.

And, indeed, there are some ideas that need time to ferment. They need to be put into the drawer. You may not yet know what you need to know to write that story. For example...maybe one day I'll become friends with a baseball player, he'll tell me all sorts of cool info on the inner workings of baseball, and suddenly I *will* be able to write that baseball story. Or maybe I'll read a fascinating article about baseball and baseball players in a magazine that will inspire me. But that hasn't happened yet, so the baseball idea remains in a drawer.

And then, there are some ideas which are just ideas. We must remember that an idea is not a story.

This is why a single idea can create many different stories. Because the idea sparks stories..but is not, in itself, a story.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I have a lot of sci-fi ideas that don't have plots. That happens to me lot in sci-fi, where I think, "What if..." about some technology and then have to come up with a plot that doesn't just incoporate the idea, but dramatizes it as well. That's the hard part, making a story out of an unemotional idea.

For instance, I'm fascinated by surface chemistry, the idea that all chemical reactions and everything we know about things comes from what we observe of its surface. Even if we split a rock open, all we're looking at is a new surface, we can never see inside (well, we can now, with MRI, but forget that for the moment). I like that as a metaphor for what we know about each other, and I started writing a story incorporating that idea and using some truly creepy fossils I've seen at the museum that look like they just grew inside solid rock. I've got some entities composed of standing vibrations that live in the rock, but I need a better plot to hang it all on. I don't want it to be just a monster story. About 7,000 words and it's just sitting there.

I hang onto my ideas, I guess. Usually when I start writing, I have only a scene or situation in mind, and I'm not sure what the story's about or what will happen. Sometimes a story develops, and sometimes it just won't. Eudora Welty, the great short story writer, described sitting down to write as being seized by curiosity. She would think of some situation and be curious as to what would happen, and she'd find out by writing it out.

Stephen King ridiculed the whole idea of plot. He said that writing a story's like unearthing a fossil. You never know what you've got when you start, and you keep on sweeping away the dirt until the story emerges. I think it's like that too.

Kind of off-topic, but that's what I've been thinking about.

 

[3113]

I have a lot of sci-fi ideas that don't have plots. That happens to me lot in sci-fi, where I think, "What if..." about some technology and then have to come up with a plot that doesn't just incoporate the idea, but dramatizes it as well. That's the hard part, making a story out of an unemotional idea.

The late, great Theodore Sturgeon said: "Basically, fiction is people. You can't write fiction about ideas."

He also said, (and I'm paraphrasing here as I can't recall the exact quote) that science fiction is about human beings, in a human situation with a human problem that would not exist but for some change/development in science/technology.

Your standing vibrations idea sounds really cool. What human problem does it create that then must be solved by human beings in a human way? That's your story.

 

[Lord DragonsWing]

I had one story I was working on and the characters took over. I love it when they do that. Unfortuantely, I lost it all when my puter crashed and I had to reformat. I lost not just the story, but all the research that went into the era I was writing about.
Now, I'm lost and can't get any of it back. I'm still trying to get that story going again but having no luck. Nothing seems to feel as right as the original story I lost. So I think I've lost it now. The idea took over and the characters vanished.
So I'll back away and see if I can maybe write it later.

 

[3113]

I had one story I was working on and the characters took over. I love it when they do that. Unfortuantely, I lost it all when my puter crashed and I had to reformat. I lost not just the story, but all the research that went into the era I was writing about.

OUCH! My most heartfelt sympathies and condolences

I, um, hope you now have a nice, portable hard-drive to back things up on?

 

[Liar]

Have you ever had a great story idea, but couldn't make it settle down on the page?

What do you do when you are halfway into a story and you realize it's going nowhere?

Have you ever run across an idea you thought would make a great story but you knew you couldn't or wouldn't write it?

What do you do with those ideas? Tell them to other authors? Throw them into a drawer and forget them? What happens to poor, orphan story ideas?

Yes.

Scrap it.

Yes.

Forget them and move on. I'm never short on ideas, but I'm always short on writing.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Have you ever had a great story idea, but couldn't make it settle down on the page?

I've had a few. the best I ever had however, when it settled into this patter, found a patron saint in Shang and got written By and large, if I have a strong idea and am having trouble getting it to the page I can send a snippet to Goosey, or Mats, or Shang, or the cloudwarrior or rumple and they can give me the kind of guide I need to make the idea play nice

What do you do when you are halfway into a story and you realize it's going nowhere?

Save it in my wip folder and move on. I'll keep coming back to it ocasionally, until it's ready to be told.

Have you ever run across an idea you thought would make a great story but you knew you couldn't or wouldn't write it?

A lot at first. Now I have more confidence in my ability, so I'm willing to give those ideas a try.

What do you do with those ideas? Tell them to other authors? Throw them into a drawer and forget them? What happens to poor, orphan story ideas?

I will occasionally pass an idea to an author I think could do it well. Usually I simply save them and work on them in fits and starts. they may never make it past the draft stage, but my orpahans have lots of comapny

 

[Typo Fu Master]

Have you ever had a great story idea, but couldn't make it settle down on the page?

What do you do when you are halfway into a story and you realize it's going nowhere?

Have you ever run across an idea you thought would make a great story but you knew you couldn't or wouldn't write it?

What do you do with those ideas? Tell them to other authors? Throw them into a drawer and forget them? What happens to poor, orphan story ideas?

I've started a couple of stories, but it's my own inadequacy that keeps them from being finished. Not enough attention span. So they sit on my hard drive and in my head. One is possibly too harsh for Lit, and the other is a comedy/satire.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I hang onto my ideas, I guess. Usually when I start writing, I have only a scene or situation in mind, and I'm not sure what the story's about or what will happen. Sometimes a story develops, and sometimes it just won't.

My imagination still returns to that pulsing red "vein" in the earth and the little boy, Doc... that one going anywhere yet?

But I agree, about uncovering fossils... what I do is more archeology than any organized process... I don't write stories, I unearth them... at least, I do when I'm not forcing things...

 

[Equinoxe]

I have far more story ideas that never (fully) made the translation to paper than I do ones which have. At least for the moment, I have not yet abandoned any of them (except ones I no longer remember, if any exist).

When I hit a point in which I am unsure what to do and the story seems to have stopped, I tend to consider it for a moment and do nothing. Take a break and step away to get a new perspective or fresh inspiration. Sometimes, I never seem to migrate back, other times I do and end up reworking the whole thing (often repeatedly, I sometimes compare work to Penelope's weaving -- I try not to read too much into what that analogy is saying about my motives, though).

I have thought of a few ideas which I am not sure I could do, for a variety of artistic media, not just writing, but there are some which I just don't know how to translate from my mind to paper (or canvas). Those remain on the waiting list like everything else, I have time to get around to them eventually.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I'm stuck on a Bermuda Triangle story where a man gets sent by the Triangle to a different dimension, meaning also another planet. Think of it as a natural "Stargate".
I'm just trying to decide what to do with him once he gets there. I have a vague idea of it being a planet stuck in a Dark Age/medieval cultural state, with feudalism and such. I'm just stuck.

 

[Kev H]

Some of my best story ideas faded before I was awake enough to commit them to memory and write them down. I can remember thinking, "that's an amazing idea" and nothing more, or only the most unbelievable parts of them. I used to focus every night before I went to bed on remembering my dreams, but I had to stop that in a few weeks since I was feeling tired all the time. It's little wonder that dreams have been a fascinating topic for so long.

 

[3113]

Some of my best story ideas faded before I was awake enough to commit them to memory and write them down.

heh. But a lot of those are like being on drugs, Kev. The cliché of the LSD trip where the guy feels he knows the secret to the universe, writes it down, then when he sobers up, he looks at the paper and it's nonsense.

All too often, when you do write those dream ideas down...and come fully awake and read what you wrote, you say, "Why did I think that was a good idea?"

 

[Equinoxe]

heh. But a lot of those are like being on drugs, Kev. The cliché of the LSD trip where the guy feels he knows the secret to the universe, writes it down, then when he sobers up, he looks at the paper and it's nonsense.

All too often, when you do write those dream ideas down...and come fully awake and read what you wrote, you say, "Why did I think that was a good idea?"

The Flaming Globes of Sigmund

 

[Andreina]

the story of my life

 

[Guest]

Some of my best story ideas faded before I was awake enough to commit them to memory and write them down. I can remember thinking, "that's an amazing idea" and nothing more, or only the most unbelievable parts of them. I used to focus every night before I went to bed on remembering my dreams, but I had to stop that in a few weeks since I was feeling tired all the time. It's little wonder that dreams have been a fascinating topic for so long.

heh. But a lot of those are like being on drugs, Kev. The cliché of the LSD trip where the guy feels he knows the secret to the universe, writes it down, then when he sobers up, he looks at the paper and it's nonsense.

All too often, when you do write those dream ideas down...and come fully awake and read what you wrote, you say, "Why did I think that was a good idea?"

I've been lucky with turning dreams into stories. Both the stories I have on Lit now actually came from a piece of "something" settling into my subconsious and producing a scene or a picture while I slept, which was strong enough to remain until I woke up. I've another such scene that is the starting point of a (currently unfinished) novel.

But I have never tried to remember my dreams and I never really have "ideas" -- just little etched pictures or scenes, like a movie.

 

[Guest]

Have you ever had a great story idea, but couldn't make it settle down on the page?

What do you do when you are halfway into a story and you realize it's going nowhere?

Have you ever run across an idea you thought would make a great story but you knew you couldn't or wouldn't write it?

What do you do with those ideas? Tell them to other authors? Throw them into a drawer and forget them? What happens to poor, orphan story ideas?

Yes... I have tried desperately to get the one in my head out... but I am sooooooo far into the story in my mind that i don't know how to write it

I have several stories like that... chapters of stories that are already posted... It is not necessarily that they are not going anywhere but that I don't want to diminish the original story... so I have the all just sitting there waiting.... and some extra chapters that I don't know how to keep going with them I know where I want them to go but am unsure of how to get them from point A to point D

Several... and they fell into the category of I would not write them

I keep the ideas to myself... I don't give them away because I think maybe sometime I will write the story

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

In my writing drawer there is a list, actually now several lists detailing ideas by form they'll eventually take or genre. There is also a stack of uncoordinated papers showing the more detailed fleshing out of those ideas. The fact that it keeps growing demonstrates that I must become more prolific before I end up with a drawerful of never written works.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Several of my ideas started as brief fantasies or daydreams.

 

[Kev H]

Thank you for the laugh, 3113.

And yes, fishing for good dream/story ideas is like fishing in an overfished lake. However, it's not that simple as your tripping analogy, at least not for someone as analytical as I am. There always underlying currents/meaning/ideas that can come out through reflecting on the dreams/feelings...that is IF you can get it to hang around long enough. Some are so intense they will not leave me until I have slept a few times. And maybe once every 2 years, I have one good enough to write out - the very first powerful dream that got me writing erotica (back in 88/89) left me every detail I needed to complete the story. Someday, I will actually get around to posting that one. (For an example of a clear dream being written down, go check out my little one-off on ES about a dentist visit.)

But, I know I have forgotten some great ones.

Other than that, I have never had a great story idea that I could not write down (though most are still WIPs, and they often morph throughout the creative process).

 

[Guest]

Does anyone here keep writing journals or notebooks? How do you preserve those moments that come from nowhere and beg to be made into a story? Do you record things you see and hear -- snippets of conversation, little scenes, people's expressions -- and use them later? Have you ever tried some kind of recommended system for ideas? How did it work for you?

 

[3113]

Does anyone here keep writing journals or notebooks? How do you preserve those moments that come from nowhere and beg to be made into a story? Do you record things you see and hear -- snippets of conversation, little scenes, people's expressions -- and use them later? Have you ever tried some kind of recommended system for ideas? How did it work for you?

Journals, no. But there are little notebooks all over the house. Always something by the bed as some of the best ideas pop into one's head at 3am.

As for a recommended system...not sure what you mean by that. If you mean a system from a "how to write" book...I think every writer has to work out their own system. There are exercises that certain books propose which can help generate creativity, but in the end, what works is what works.

 

[MasterPhoenix]

Too many of my ideas get trapped behind the pall of Writer's Block that haunts me like a stalking butler.