Thursday, October 6, 2011

Newton's Third Law of...Writing?

My brain goes in some of the weirdest directions sometimes.  I've been thinking this week about all the lovely and shiny ideas I've had for stories over the last year, and how many of them tanked within the first 1,000 words on the page.

I've come to a conclusion:  For every good idea, there is an equal and opposite bad idea.

Looks familiar, doesn't it?  It should.  It's Newton's Third Law of Motion, which I've thoroughly corrupted for my own purposes.

I'm a nerd, I know.  I embrace that side of myself fully.

But it's true, not every idea can be a good one.  Not every idea can have a stellar concept, a breathtaking plot, and three-dimensional characters.  Can you imagine if they did?  I'd never leave my computer again!

Letting ideas or characters or whatever shiny bit of story it was that sprung to mind go can be sad-making.  I've still got one idea from a while back I'm clinging desperately to, hoping I'll be able to find a plot to fit it at some point.  But at some point you have to allow yourself to step back and say, "This idea isn't as great as I first thought, and that's okay.  It's time to move on."

Because some ideas turn out to be a brassy copper instead of that shiny gold color we were looking for.  Newton said that's how it had to be.  Blame him.  ;)

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