Ideas are Cheap”¦ and Everywhere

“Ideas are cheap.” I heard this once from a panel of successful authors at a seminar, and I thought to myself  –  ‘No, that can’t be right. If I have a genius idea, it’s priceless.’ Right? Wrong.

     Then said panel proved it. Take any idea and give it to someone and their spin on it will be completely different than the next person’s and the next’s. So, any idea has an unlimited number of incarnations. Cheap. All our experiences create our perspective and that all plays a role in how we would tackle a topic. Cool. Cheap.

Whenever me and my CP are talking about something that happened to me, or I did, or I lived in the past, she says, ‘that’d make a great story.’ And, I think, DUH, why didn’t I think of that. Everywhere.

Really absorb these concepts, fellow Fictorians – anything, everything is an idea for a story and no two people will tell that story the same. Cheap and Everywhere.

How many of us have watched the TV show, Angel? Me? I own it, love it, discuss it… you get the idea. Yet I never had this moment of brilliance. What if you took the characters of Angel and Wesley and made them gay lovers with a BDSM slant to their relationship? No one have that idea? Wrong. At least one person did. When I found out the book I was reading was inspired by that very idea – I thought that’s freakin’ genius. The names are different and there’s a lot changed… because it’s through this author’s filter. But, knowing the characters that were the source inspiration, there were moments reading the book where I could picture them. I recognized some character traits. The author had an idea and explored it.

The point is that ideas are everywhere if you ‘get it.’  Tap into your inspiration and run with it. Ideas are cheap… and everywhere.

I challenge you – use the following idea, process it through the filter of your experiences, and where do you take that story? Share if you want.

IDEA: You just had several huge flower boxes built in your yard, and they’re big enough to hold a body or two…

3 responses on “Ideas are Cheap”¦ and Everywhere

  1. Colette

    I never realized how true this is until recently as well. It doesn’t matter how good the idea, if the writing doesn’t match up, the idea will flop. But new writers always think we have the fresh idea that will take the world by storm. Yeah. Not likely. But write it anyway.

  2. clancy Post author

    Oooh, a doorway – like where you’re headed, Kylie. And Colette – yep. The writing has to be good on top of all that or it won’t see the lightof day. Once you embrace this idea, I think it’s really liberating.

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