How do you know when you have a great idea for a writing project?
This is a very tough question to answer, and it's critically important to make the attempt.
I have no problem coming up with ideas. Things pop into my head all the time, in various states of readiness: a line of dialogue, a story twist, a premise, an entire novel. I can never tell what will show up. This is something I've cultivated since I was a youth, because I knew I'd be useless doing anything other than storytelling of one kind or another (I was right).
So here's the deal: never, ever reject an idea. If it's unsuitable, just don't pursue it. Write the thing down, put it aside, and let it be. But never, ever
say "that's a stupid idea, forget it." Why would you do that?
Rhetorical question. I know why people do that. I ask about it. A typical answer goes more or less as follows: "If I tried to do anything with that idea, I'd look like an idiot." GONG!
Failbuzzer. Hang head in shame like a Japanese game show contestant.
See, nobody looks more like an idiot than somebody who will not pursue an idea because it might expose them to ridicule. That's not quite true: if you stuff frozen squid up your nostrils and paint your head blue, you'll look at least as much like an idiot. But think about that defensive reaction to your own ideas.
We spend our lives, us creative types, trying to come up with something brilliant, a piece for the ages. That may not be our express goal, but it's part of the package: why not produce something special, while we're at it? Even this sort of ambition makes people nervous, because attempt = potential failure.
But you -- yes, I'm talking to
you -- have ideas. Many people don't. Ideas are precious things, sort of like newborn kittens before they start slaughtering rodents. And yet --
and yet -- you reject these cute little guys. You put them in a sack and smash them with a hammer before they grow up. Why would you do that?
Of course these ideas don't work yet. Of course they're not ready for prime time. They're NEW. They haven't been rewritten over and over again until they don't suck. USEFUL TIP: almost all ideas suck when they're new. If you ever have an idea that doesn't suck when it's new, nurture that thing for all you're worth, because you'll be the next Dan Brown.
Dan Brown has been accused, by straw men deflecting my harsh opinions, of being an indifferent writer at best. Like a musician of modest talent, he has learned all the chords and knows all the tunes, but the ghost of the music isn't in him. However, Dan Brown had a killer idea. He had that golden, gleaming, awesome idea. And unlike some people (let's pretend I don't mean you), Dan Brown knew enough to keep quiet and take notes while that brilliant idea wandered around in the sunlight for the first time, blinking stupidly while its fur dried.
Now, his first reaction to such an idea, if he hadn't learned how to stalk the things in the wild, might have been to say, "um, I just had an idea that [spoiler alert] Jesus had a baby and that baby had one and for 100 generations all these Jesus descendant babies have come along, one at a time, and it's a big damn secret you bet. I'm going to go get hammered and forget about this."
But Dan Brown knew what he was doing. He recognized this was an idea that could lead to something. So he let the idea get a little older. He fed it, bathed it, and kept it company. And before long, he had one of the bestselling novels of all time on his hands.
Will he ever have another idea as good as that? I don't know. Neither does he. It doesn't matter. He succeeded, and if he doesn't succeed again, it detracts not at all from his success -- any more than winning only one Academy Award in your lifetime. You don't have to come up with a whole bunch of brilliant ideas. You can look for the potential in lots of half-assed ideas, too. That happens to be my approach, because I lack taste and discrimination.
Most writers will have a small number of ideas of varying types and quality over the course of a year: fragments, stories, conversations, and whatnot. I've written elsewhere about the value of compounding two lesser ideas into one big idea. You can do that. It works. And the more you let ideas be themselves, rather than beat them to death out of preemptive humiliation, the more ideas will show up. It's like feeding squirrels on your porch. Word gets around. So over time you can accumulate lots of ideas and play around with them, for weeks, years, and decades (there's no time limit).
Here's the big note for the day: don't sweat it if you think you haven't got enough ideas, or they're not any good, or you just don't like the damn things. Be patient. My initial question was "How do you know when you have a great idea for a writing project?" The best answer I have is this: "when it's fully developed."
The good news?
You only need one great idea in your lifetime.
Remember the novel
Redbum? No? How about
Moby Dick?
The same guy wrote both of them.
