Good Ideas Are A Dime A Dozen (But They're Worthless If You Don't Use Them)

It isn't hard to have good ideas for books. That might sound like a controversial statement (and I'll address the elephant in the room later on in this entry), but it's something I've found to be true the longer I've been an author. From middle school kids in an after school writing club, to that hairdresser who likes to read bargain bin thrillers, to that friend of yours who only grasps storytelling in the broadest strokes, everyone you've ever met has the capacity to come up with a great idea.

Ideas are cheap. It's execution that's rare.

But I had the idea... what do you mean I have to write the book too?!

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It's Not Hard Having Good Ideas

There's this weird obsession with the creative spark that lies within the seed of a really good idea. Whether it's a high fantasy setting full of dark magic, or a sci-fi dystopia that takes place on the dark side of the moon, that initial idea can be like taking a shot of strong liquor... or being brushed by the fingers of a wayward muse. It's intoxicating, and it can drive even normally languid people into fits of creative mania as they watch the new idea spiral out into a galaxy like a mental version of the Big Bang.

Mmm... brain juice go brrrrrrrrrr...

The problem with so-called good ideas is that this is the fun part of the creative process. It's messing around with concepts and ideas, but you don't really have commitment to anything. You're having fun, and you should be... but this isn't the part of the process that makes or breaks you as a writer. Because anyone can have good ideas.

Not everyone can take those ideas and turn them into a story. And that's where your execution comes in.

Execution is the process of taking your idea and turning it into a completed work. It's all the time you take to craft the narrative, figure out the characters, re-write sections of the manuscript, and basically do anything else that would fall under the actual "writing" part of the job.

Because I'm going to let you in on a little secret; good ideas aren't required for a good story. So don't obsess over them.

A Really Good Burger is Better Than a Poorly-Cooked Steak

Have you ever tried to tell someone a story about a dream you had? Or an experience that hit you while you were on psychotropics? Well if you've never done either of these things, generally you do it because you want to convey the feeling of elation, terror, discovery, or astonishment you had. Writers generally do the same thing; we had this amazing explosion go off in our heads, and we want to share it with our readers in a way that lets them take the same journey we did. However, the reason those narratives rarely go over well is that they're muddled, confusing, or outright nonsensical, filled with, "you had to be there," kinds of moments that felt profound to the storyteller but which don't grab the audience at all.

Or, put another way, your idea could be an extremely fine cut of steak. But if you scorch it black, don't season it properly, or worse just try to serve it to someone raw, they aren't going to like it. On the contrary, your idea might be plain, ground hamburger meat. Nothing special, and nothing unusual. But if you prepare it properly, add the right seasonings, pair it with the proper flavors, add a bit of sauce, and cook it just right, the result is going to blow the steak out of the water, even if it was technically a finer cut to begin with.

What I'm saying is that good ideas aren't as special as we think they are. It's how we prepare them and present our ideas to the audience that matter. And a concept that's just run-of-the-mill with no mind-blowing revelations or bells and whistles can easily outpace what should be an extremely engaging idea that's executed poorly.

Focus on your cooking. If you can make any story taste great, then you won't spend all your energy trying to find the right "good" idea to wow the audience with.

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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