Sorry, but I can't write a on posting music tonight. I have an account with my mom on Playlist.com, and she has all the passwords and such. Instead, I thought I'd talk about something you've probably come across; recycling your bad ideas.
Don't misunderstand me. At times you'll be discouraged and want to throw a great idea away, but sticking with it is the best solution. Some ideas are great, and they just need a little tweaking. That's what I mean by recycling. I don't suggest throwing an idea out completely unless there's no way it will ever appeal to anyone, including you.
Many times I find what might make a bad main plot, scene, or character trait, can be Incorporated as something smaller. Experiment. Try new things with the understanding that you will change it at least once. Don't be afraid to say, "This is a bad idea."
I've written a fantasy book around 500 pages. I rewrote it completely two or three times. It still doesn't strike the right chord for me, but I know I've come a long way. When I first started, the characters were fish. That's right, a fantasy story with the main characters with fins and gills! I finally admitted that was a bad idea.
How do you climb a wall, light a torch, or constructed buildings when you're a fish anyway?
Does any brave soul have some bad ideas to share?
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
The Trashcan
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7 comments:
Bad Idea #300,452,631: The bad guys had the nickname of "Brownies." Like, the protagonists being attacked by girl scouts or something! Terrible. The nickname has since been changed to "snakers," which I'm not keen on, but it's waaaay better than "brownie."
Also, why is this post invisible?
Lastly, thanks for the copyright information. Since my latest short story post, I've been worried about plagarists. Thanks again for the info!
No problem! Let's see if I can make this visible.
I suppose that the fish people would have to stay underwater with their walls and use greek fire...
Ah, bad ideas are a fountian that dwarfs a few good ideas I get trickling out of a water fountain...
I have a 100 page story and I've re-writen it once already, but we'll see where my ideas carry it.
Also, I would say where although and idea is not bad, you might come up with something better to replace it, and in that case, perhaps you could 'recycle' it for another part of the story.
~Elliot
Errrm...bad ideas...bad ideas...let's see....
Nope, none at the moment. I have had some incredibly ridiculous ideas though. Here's one, but I'm not ready to throw it away yet, cause I see some potential in it if correctly written: a story about a character on a quest to destroy the author (i.e., myself). It would be difficult, and it would be hard to have my character win, but hey, maybe I'll try it someday.
:)Ian(:
copyright info??? what copyright info??? I'm a bit worried about plagarists too...
:)Ian(:
Jamin has a little link on the right hand side of his blog (near the very bottom of all the "dashboard stuff" on the right side) that says something to the effect of "Page Protected By Copyscape Do Not Copy" You can follow the link and see how it works. Also, in his normal "links" section he has some pretty good info about copyright.
I'd like to write more on The Veteran series that I started a day or two ago, but was hesitant... however, I had remembered seeing something on Jamin's blog about copyrighting stuff. So I did my research and now I know!
You should check it out.
I like posting stories on blogs. I did that with a fantasy story involving a prince who has to return from his banishment in the leper colony to save his father's kingdom from raiders. Wew! Well, that's my whole book in one sentense.
That story started as blog story, but I removed it when I decided it had the potential to be a book.
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