Post #130 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
5 Writing Tips So Those Great Ideas Don’t Get Away
by Pamela Jane Bell, regular guest blogger, children’s book author and currently writing her memoir
It was an idea on the edge of your consciousness; a thought you almost had; a book concept you came up with but dismissed because you figured it was dumb, or not marketable, or had already been done. And then someone else writes a book based on your elusive or discounted idea, and it’s a best-seller. Now you feel really dumb.
It can happen to any one, even to memoir writers. You could have an insight for an original way to lay out your narrative, for the angle of your story, or even the title (although titles can’t be copyrighted, you want yours to be unique.)
Below are five tips to help you capture that brilliant idea before it slips away.
1. Don’t make any assumptions
Occasionally I read about a new book and think, I had the same idea! But I didn’t do anything about it and now it’s too late. That sets you up for making the same mistake again. Never assume it’s too late. Even if you think your idea is similar to someone else’s, your execution will be different.
Take Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes, and Too Much Tuscan Sun by Dario Castagno. Although the title of Castagno’s book is a take-off on Mayes’, Castagno’s memoir is a highly entertaining read, told from a fresh perspective. Castagno went on to write a successful sequel. What if he had dismissed his title and his take on life under the Tuscan sun (whether too much or just enough) because it had already been done?
2. Never discount the obvious
Think of how many hundreds, even thousands of ideas flit through your mind in a single day. You dismiss most of them because they seem so obvious or unremarkable that they don’t strike you as ideas at all. But the appearance of obviousness might actually mean that your idea is universal. It’s what everyone is thinking but what no one has thought to write –the clue hidden in plain sight.
3. Develop your ideas
Years ago a mentor gave me some advice.
“Talk to the writing,” he said. “If it is real, it will talk back.”
At the time, I didn’t understand what he meant. But I have since discovered that you can have a productive dialog with your writing.
You’ve heard the saying – “It’s O.K. to talk to yourself, as long as you don’t answer.”
But what’s the good of talking to yourself if you don’t answer back? Writers have many voices within, and they all have something to say.
Give your ideas a chance to breathe. Take time to develop them in your journal or manuscript. Explore them, play with them. Talk to them, and let them talk back.
4. Ignore anyone (including yourself) who says your idea has already been done
This goes back to not making assumptions. Even as I was writing this blog, I got an e-newsletter from a children’s bookstore announcing a book about a cat who runs for president. As it happens, I also wrote a children’s book (as yet unpublished) about my adorable but totally lethargic cat, Mittens, running for president. And right away, when I read the newsletter, I started to make the mistake I’m telling you here to avoid. It’s too late! I thought. My idea has already been done.
Then I did a little investigating on-line. I read the summary of the book advertised in the newsletter. It was about a cat running for president in a community of other cats. I compared it to my own manuscript.
(In the following scene, Annie has just told her family about her plans to interrupt Mittens’ twenty-two hours naps by compelling him to run for president.)
“He’s very cute, that’s a good quality,” said Annie’s mother, looking at Mittens thoughtfully.
“He’s not terribly smart but he would have good advisors,” added her father.
“He sees both sides of the issue,” said Annie’s brother, Jason. “First he wants to go out, and then he wants to come in.”
“He can retract when he’s make a mistake,” added Annie’s mom. “He’s always coughing up hairballs!”
“And the campaign buttons would be so cute!” said Annie.
Looking over my manuscript, I realized it was more of a political satire than a children’s book, and would attract a very different audience. Don’t bury your ideas in the “it’s already been done” graveyard.
5. Write down your five absolutely dumbest ideas – then take a second look.
Recently, my friend Debbie (Writing into the Sunset) read an essay in a popular magazine describing the author’s experiences studying French in Montpellier. Debbie, too, had studied French in Montpellier, and had brought back many entertaining stories of her adventures there.
“Why didn’t I think of writing about my experiences?” Debbie said to me.
Why didn’t she? Why I didn’t I think of a million ideas I could have thought of? Because I assumed a particular idea wasn’t funny or entertaining or poignant enough. I thought no one would be interested or that it had already been done. Or maybe (and this is hard to accept) I simply didn’t think of it at all.
We all think differently – that’s the beauty of our minds. But I suspect that many of us dismiss our best ideas even before they rise to the surface of our consciousness. In other words, we pre-dismiss them.
Slow down and take a deep look at all those ideas floating by – the obvious, the mundane, the bizarre and the brilliant. Take time to talk to your ideas.
Then listen to what they have to say.
Writing Prompt
Think of an idea that’s been in your mind for a long time. You pass it every day, like a familiar figure standing at the train station. But you never
stopped to say “Hello.” Take the time now to talk to this stranger and find out what he or she has to say. Write for fifteen minutes without censoring yourself. Then drop us a comment and tell us how it went!
Pamela Jane Bell is the author of twenty-six children’s books, and is currently completing her memoir on how she became a children’s book author.
Her new children’s book Little Goblins Ten
“Readers are rewarded with ample humor and wit… there’s a sweetness to the parental-offspring interactions in the playful, alliterative text.”—New York Times Book Review
Book News! Little Elfie One, the Christmas sequel to Gobins will be coming out in 2014 (Harper). Elfie will also be illustrated by NY Times best-selling illustrator, Jane Manning.
Pamela Jane’s first book, Noelle of the Nutcracker (Houghton Mifflin, illustrated by Jan Brett) is still in print:
“Jane’s first book magically captures the dreams-can-come-true atmosphere of the holiday season…Jane is a skillful storyteller. A lovely novella any time of the year.”— Publishers Weekly
Pamela Jane Bell always gives us something new to consider and today’s post is no exception. Women’s Memoirs is pleased to publish another article by Pamela.
Pamela’s other hat, that of a children’s author, gives her a unique perspective. If you have children or grandchildren with birthdays coming, you’ll want to check out Pamela’s new lovely, illustrated book that received a starred review by Kirkus and a review by Publishers Weekly that said, “In a gently spooky spin on “Over in the Meadow” that counts up to 10, various ghouls and beasts groan, swoop, and haunt. Jane has fun playing within the nursery rhyme’s parameters…”
