The Idea Fish

Writing a story is not all that difficult, once you have an Idea. Ideas come in different shapes and sizes, and appear to different people different ways. There's no telling what form an Idea will take when it presents itself to you. But sometimes, once you have an Idea, you don't know where to begin with it. This is where the Idea Fish come in.

If the mind is a fishbowl than your thoughts are Idea Fish. They swim about, generally in schools, and most of them have "Start Here" written on them. Have you ever had a really messy room and you set out to clean it but never succeeded because you had too many options to start with? Should you make your bed, or pick up your clothes, or straighten your desk first? Have you ever been confronted with an error screen that says "Press any key to restart" and fled screaming from the room? This, my friends, is the attack of the Idea Fish.

Once you have an Idea it's time to start writing, but where to begin? The Idea Fish float over and make suggestions. Sometimes there are just a few, the choice is simple, and we all survive. But sometimes there is a very large school of them, and the assault can cause a temporary paralysis: the fear of choosing wrong.

Endless Possibilities

Let me give you a very simple example. Your prompt is to write about four children who run away from home. Well, if you tell anyone you're writing about four children who run away from home their very first question is going to be, "Why are they running away?" It's a good question. It deserves a good question.

Why are they running away? The Idea doesn't cover anything other than the running, so the Idea Fish swarm over to offer advice... and what a lot of advice! Maybe their mother died. Maybe their father is a criminal. Maybe their house burned down. Maybe they want to see the world. Maybe they were lured away by a stranger. Maybe they received a mysterious message. Maybe they're not human.

Where to begin, eh? Suppose I close my eyes and point and pick that way? Can't do that, I'm the writer here, I'm going with the most interesting once. So they're not human. What then? Maybe they're elves. Or aliens. Or maybe one of them is an alien and is secretly preparing to kill the others. Maybe their mother escaped from the Otherworld and that's why they're running now. Or maybe they've been experimented on and had their memory of the incident removed. Maybe they're genetically engineered to be superhumans.

Bang head here. 

This is the point at which my brain gets overloaded and I wander off to speculate about something that makes sense, even if it's a pointless kind of sense, like the future of television. I have succumbed to the attack.

Sometimes it's possible to prevail against the attack, to find your way out of the maze, and banish the IF's from your mind. But they don't really go; they lurk in your subconscious saying "If" "Maybe" and "Perhaps." They ask if this is really the best idea you could have chosen. Perhaps if you picked out a different one your story would be even better. But how many stories about four children who run away from home does a body need? I just want to get to the running part, never mind why!

Running.... now that's a good idea... Ahem. Anyway. Those are the Idea Fish, the bane of my existence. In fact, I'd say the attack of the Idea Fish is more trouble than Writer's Block. Which do you think it's easier to get past? A brick wall or a tree of infinite possibilities?

Unfinished Beginnings: Introduction

It being my birthday and all I feel like I ought to post something deep and reflective and... birthday-ish. But I'm not even here, this is an automatically scheduled post that I wrote a good two weeks ago.  Right now I'm somewhere in the city of Chattanooga doing any number of things with any number of people, and completely ignoring the fact that it's my birthday. I'm celebrating next week with two of my siblings. So instead I thought I'd introduce a new series to you.

I have a notebook full of stories that never made it past page two. Some are good ideas, some are lame ideas, some I simply don't have time to mess with, some are too underdeveloped to be useful, and some I'm just clueless where they came from or how they ended up in my notebook.

It's a green notebook, it's labeled "June, 2008" but I  call it the notebook of Unfinished Beginnings. Rather than let those beginnings moulder forever at the bottom of my priority list from which they shall never rise I present them to you, to read and ridicule, steal or borrow, or generally draw inspiration from.

What If... Hell and Purgatory

There's one Idea I've had frequently that won't leave me alone. I've wanted to write a short story around it, but could never get it to work really. It's almost too good of an idea to consign to a short story alone. Somehow it seems like that would make it less of an Idea.

Earth is a testing ground, a place of training and trials. When our school days are over and our destiny is manifest we go to our appropriate reward, be that Eternal Bliss or Eternal Suffering. But What If the testing doesn't end there? What If...

A young hero dies a tragic and brilliantly sacrificial death, and is taken into the bosom of Abraham to be comforted like Lazarus of old. He is happy, incredibly happy. Paradise is beautiful, intoxicating, all he'd ever dreamed it would be. Across a wide and indivisible gulf, however, he can see the boiling lake of fire, and he can hear the screams of people he once knew, people he once loved. In the garden, of course, it is easy to forget them, but if we walks a little farther, to the very edge of the brink there is no escape from their piteous cries. There is still suffering in paradise.

Well, of course our hero (being a hero) can't leave well enough alone. He can't understand why he is allowed such happiness while others suffer. (Probably most theological views will start to recognize something as wrong here.) Here's where the Idea gets sketchy. Perhaps the Hero discovers that he can save those unfortunates from Hell, but that he must take their place. I think in my story he couldn't live with the injustice of it, and throws himself in. Either way, the Hero chooses Hell over Heaven. And what do you think happens?

Purgatory is the idea that we all must pay for our past sins, and suffer a time of sorrow and tribulation to be made worthy for heaven. It is the concept that we must somehow prove ourselves worthy of the ultimate reward. It is not a test, because the outcome is known already; every soul will eventually get to Heaven.

Would you have the courage to give up heaven to save the damned? Could you do what Christ did and lay down your life in exchange? If you had the opportunity to exchange your soul for another, would you do it? What If there was one last test?

DISCLAIMER: I am not proposing the theological possibility of such a thing, only speculating on the drama and soul searching it sets up if you consider it hypothetically.