Sometimes a premise that you end up not using or changing can be used for some other idea. This happened tonight for me.
I was thinking of this series idea that was built around a character and an industry. That series idea has been radically different. I thought back to the original character and premise. What about it did I like? What did I want to write about it?
I started thinking of what I could do with that original idea.
Then–boom–out of nowhere, as everybody else in the house was asleep and Chariots Of Fire was on television (but wasn’t really being watched), I came up with an idea. A pretty crazy idea, if you ask me.
Could be brilliant. Could be terrible. Could amount to nothing. Could be my breakthrough.
All because I didn’t forget about that first premise.
Don’t forget. Store away. Some ideas are truly worthless and need to stay buried. But some ideas are truly priceless.
Only time can tell. And the only way it can is to occasionally pull them out of the mental drawer, dust them off, and think about them for a little while.
This same thing happened to me yesterday. Two separate ideas suddenly got married and became one in my brain. And the best part is that they make each other better and stronger than they were apart. All my best projects seem to develop like this, becoming a Greatest Hits collection of sorts.
That is an interesting thing, I mean, how the brain works. Ideas can flow, like a river, or become sluggish, like water pooled behind a dam. It’s the creative thinker that has the poise to break the dams and permit the flow. It’s the non-starter, as you mentioned in a recent writing tip, that builds more dams.
Don’t know if you saw Black Swan, but it’s a masterpiece. I movie that will, in my opinion, live on and grow…protagonist Nina Sayer’s transformation to a black swan—“I want to become perfect”—is a modern day Norma Desmond of Sunset Boulevard. Black Swan is a very unique premise, something that you’d enjoy because it walks that ultra-thin thread between psychological thriller, and allegory of our times. It’s not too profound and preachy, and yet it’s not too kitschy. It’s extraordinarily well scripted.
Sounds like your “Black Swan” may have just sprung into your head. The pulse-pounding beach running scene in Chariots can do that. LOL
Enjoy your writing tips, Travis. You’re building quite a log of them; someday can compile into a helpful e-book full of pearls.
Loved Black Swan even though it was crazy. I wrote my Black Swan last year. Unfortunately, my agent thought I'd gone crazy while writing it. It might see light of day. Perhaps sooner than we think. Perhaps an ebook once it's been rewritten?? 🙂
Not just yeah. But hell yeah!