I realized recently that I have a lot of story ideas that I dismiss immediately.
I’ll feel a bit of curiosity about a topic or a question, I’ll allow myself about 30 seconds to ponder “What if?” but then I start shutting the idea down with thoughts like:
- “But that couldn’t by a YA story. I’m a YA writer.”
- “That’s not the right historical era.”
- “I don’t write fantasy. I can’t write that book.”
I caught myself doing this a couple weeks ago when listening to a podcast about a pharmaceutical crisis in the 1950s. There was a woman at the FDA who was new to her job but stood up to the executives at a big pharma company putting pressure on them, and it prevented disaster for the United States. Pretty cool story, and practically as a fictitious adaptation formed in my head, I was already thinking, “Nope, that’s about adults. I don’t write for adults. And hasn’t big pharma been done to death already?”
Why am I doing that? Why am I shutting down story ideas before I even get a coherent thought together?
So this week I’m going to attempt a creative exercise, and you’re all invited to do it with me. I’m wondering how many story ideas I can find between now and next Monday if I actively look and don’t censor them. If I allow myself to actually have the idea without critiquing the genre or how salable it seems or the age of the characters.
Here are my rules for me, but you do what you like:
- I must like the idea. Like, it must sound like a legit idea that I would enjoy writing.
- It must be its own book idea. Not an addition to an idea I’ve already had.
That’s it! Those are my rules. I hope you’ll join me this week!
Do you tend to censor your ideas in the way I described, or no?
Sounds fun!
I had a writing teacher say to allow creativity the freedom to play. So I write down any story ideas as a matter of principle. Even though later I might want to disown some.
I totally agree! Which is why it makes no sense that I shut myself down so quickly!
Love this idea. Second half of my sophomore and most of my junior year I had a notebook where I would keep all the little idea that came to me, from full scale plots to individual characters to vague concepts that I liked. I haven’t been as good about recording all my little thoughts lately. I’d love to get back in that habit.
Em, that’s a fantastic habit to be in! Hopefully this will help rejuvenate it for you!
So totally doing this!! I always complain about not having an overabundance of story ideas…but honestly, it’s just bc I shut so many down so fast.
Will be reporting back with how many I can come up with!!
It’s comforting to me that I’m not the only writer who does this!
Forgot to drop back in!! I got eight. ? And I may actually end up writing at least one of them!
Fantastic work, Kassie! Congratulations!
I did find myself censoring my ideas for the exact same reason you mentioned, thinking “Hey these aren’t YA stories.” After finishing my first novel, I worked hard on a query letter and synopsis to send out , but my queries are receiving few responses and no feedback, so I decided it was probably not the time to write a sequel. Hmm.
After that I sat down and wrote out story ideas for a new book and scenes or events to go with them. When I got finished, I found my best idea was for an adult novel, not a YA. Guess what? That’s right, I’m now writing a novel for adults. I have a lot of war experience and I think it will make for an interesting book.
I know that’s a non-traditional way of trying to break into the YA community, but maybe if I can get the adult novel to sell, the publisher might utter some magical words like “Do you have any other manuscripts?” Then I’ll be able start the work I really want to be doing.
I wonder if my “YA censor” will come back if that happens. Oh well, cheers and good writing!
I think your approach is much better than just rewriting the same book over and over and hoping an editor will fall in love with it! I never thought I would be writing YA historical, so we can’t always predict where creativity will take us 🙂