(no subject)
Jun. 15th, 2006 06:23 pmIt seems to be a common enough belief that if an idea isn't written down, it disappears. Getting up the middle of the night to write something down and all that.
OK I have got up at times when I've worked out the exact wording for a sentence that had been buggin med, for values of times that are close to 1. But an idea? Definitely not.
Ideas written down do not develop. Not one. I have a text file full of ideas I wrote down that never went anywhere. If they're worth developing, they won't disappear. They'll drift around until they become a story, or, more likely these days, they'll bang into another idea and spark off a story. Sometimes this takes years, sometimes hours.
It's not just ideas. Whole casts of characters with an accompanying storyline are out there floating around, with nary a word of them having been recorded in some cases. I might forget the details that don't affect the story, like characters' names (assuming they had them in the first place, they usually only have mental tags) but they're like coins, even with the fine details worn off they're still usable.
Some have been around for a while. The one that appeared today to remind me of its existence was one I developed when I was still dragged along to church occasionally (you can possibly guess at the subject matter) and there's always the one I created in high school, that covers a few families over a couple of decades, that I sometimes bring out to wander around it. They're not going anyway (and that probably includes 'on paper' too).
Maybe it's because writing things down makes them solid and to develop they need some fluidity. Certainly when I want pin things down, I'll write, well, type them up. (Write down, type up, huh) The fine detail of a coin need protecting so if you don't want it to wear away, after all.
OK I have got up at times when I've worked out the exact wording for a sentence that had been buggin med, for values of times that are close to 1. But an idea? Definitely not.
Ideas written down do not develop. Not one. I have a text file full of ideas I wrote down that never went anywhere. If they're worth developing, they won't disappear. They'll drift around until they become a story, or, more likely these days, they'll bang into another idea and spark off a story. Sometimes this takes years, sometimes hours.
It's not just ideas. Whole casts of characters with an accompanying storyline are out there floating around, with nary a word of them having been recorded in some cases. I might forget the details that don't affect the story, like characters' names (assuming they had them in the first place, they usually only have mental tags) but they're like coins, even with the fine details worn off they're still usable.
Some have been around for a while. The one that appeared today to remind me of its existence was one I developed when I was still dragged along to church occasionally (you can possibly guess at the subject matter) and there's always the one I created in high school, that covers a few families over a couple of decades, that I sometimes bring out to wander around it. They're not going anyway (and that probably includes 'on paper' too).
Maybe it's because writing things down makes them solid and to develop they need some fluidity. Certainly when I want pin things down, I'll write, well, type them up. (Write down, type up, huh) The fine detail of a coin need protecting so if you don't want it to wear away, after all.
