Original, just like everything else

I sometimes listen to the Writing Excuses podcasts on writing, as I’ve mentioned a few times before. Lately they’ve been discussing where writers get their ideas and how they develop them. I was listening to their latest podcast when all of a sudden one of the hosts mentioned an idea he had for a story. What he described was pretty much a story I’ve already written.

After the initial shock (and thrill–I have ideas as good as Dan Wells’!) wore off I remembered that there’s very few really, truly new ideas anymore. And it’s not so much the idea as what you do with it. I expect that he could write his/my idea and come up with something very different, even though there are a lot of common plot points. Part of that is because we likely have different styles, and emphasize different aspects. But we also, in thinking deeper about what to write, would go in different directions.

As the hosts mention in the same podcast, often the goal in developing ideas is to think things through at least another level deeper than you’d be naturally inclined to do . Don’t stop with just a simple idea, but ask yourself more questions, probe the idea a little and see if you can’t come up with something more complex, more focused. If you can go another level or two deeper, chances are your story will manage to stand out as different from all the other stories that, on the surface, are about the exact same things.

How do you know if you’re gone deep enough? Beats me. I’m still learning how to do a lot of this. But, in having gone through this process with my latest project I think I’m starting to get the idea–at least the beginnings of it.