Every idea I have for a story—every story I want to write, every character and every setting—makes sense in my own head. Every story is a good story. It’s when I start sharing those stories with others that I start to discover whether they are really good or not.
It’s a painful process, but it is necessary.
While I figure out what to do with my first collection of short stories, I am already working on my next collection. I have a list of 12 – 14 ideas, settings with main characters, and have even gone so far as to synopsize the first part of each one. Initial chapters from novels, short stories from elaborate anthologies yet to be written, seemingly unrelated tales that are part of a greater whole… all ready to be written. All good, great stories. At least, in my head.
I spent more than an hour today running most of these ideas by a friend. Story settings, main characters, potential plots, et cetera. She asked questions, she told me what she envisions while reading or hearing what I have, and I tried to explain all these good, great ideas in a manner that makes them actually sound good or great.
Some stories were easier to defend than others. Some characters were better developed than I thought… or less developed than I’d hoped. They are all living, breathing people in my brain, and to tell one that they are not as good as another is kind of like picking a favorite child. In front of the other children. It’s painful.
But it’s necessary. I walked out of our discussion with a solid idea of which stories hold more promise than others, which tales to start spinning… and which ideas need more work before they are ready to be planted.
I have always been a master of good ideas. It’s the implementation of those ideas that causes me grief. I have ten thousand beginnings of stories, but very few finished (at least, until recently). But by bouncing some of those ideas off of others—by letting friends and family members read my works in progress, or what I feel like might actually be finished works—I can learn what is actually done, and what still needs to be done.
I feel a little like I have just had surgery. On my brain. But I also feel like I have some literary direction for the next few stories, and the next few weeks or months. It was a little painful. But I am very much looking forward to what comes next.
Apologies if I am rambling. But it was probably necessary.
Written while listening to Biosphere’s Substrata (1997).
The Artist and the Engineer 