Last time, I wrote about the power of a bad idea. Now, let’s talk about the unimportance of an idea.
Woah, woah, woah! What!?
Yeah. Unimportant.
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Lately, I’ve been going through old journals. I needed to reorganize a storage closet and within were thirty years of journals. While I figured out what to do with them, I decided to reread them — something I have never done. And besides the soap opera of my twenties, I realized there were a lot of ideas scribbled in those pages.
They fell into three camps.
- Ideas I was actively writing, so working out details.
- Ideas I was expanding to see if it was something I wanted to write.
- Ideas that were just a line or two.
Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of the third group, then less of the second, and, of course, the least number in the first category, even though there were a lot of pages dedicated to them.
Then, after I had finished rereading the journals — so. many. journals. — I pitched them into the trash. Ideas and all.
But What About All Those Ideas?
Yeah, what about them? Clearly, I don’t have a problem coming up with ideas and, also clear, not all ideas lead to anything. Maybe I had the idea at the wrong time in my life. Maybe the idea was great at that moment, but I cooled on it later. It’s also very possible, I had an idea and then forgot about it, which says something about the idea itself.
In the end, though, an idea is just an idea and you can’t get hung up on every idea. Because the thing is, ideas don’t matter in the long run. What’s actually important is the execution of that idea.
Execution!
Ideas are ephemeral, delicate things. They arrive from a a creative impulse. But their real importance ends when you sit down and start to write. As writers we have to shape that idea into something that will keep an audience reading and turning the page. Or scrolling. Or listening.
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And we do that by structuring the idea. We do it by taking those wisps of an idea and telling them with deep and interesting characters. We bring an idea to life with sentences that have impact and flow. This is the hard work of writing. This is the important stuff.
Ideas don’t matter as much as we think. And I think the confusion happens because often readers ask “Where do your ideas come from?” And I think they’re asking because it was an idea well executed. And when something is well executed, you don’t see the craft.
How many books have you read that had an amazing idea but the writing failed to engage you? Maybe more than we want to say. And how many books have you read that might have had a simple idea, but you couldn’t put it down?
(Side note: How great would it be to be asked “Where does your ability to craft a kick ass story come from?”)
Focus on what’s important
Ideas will come and go. I promise you will have lots and lots of them. You will have more ideas than will possibly know what to do with. So pick one to work on. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be the best. It just has to be compelling enough for you to sit down and do the important work of writing.
Shaping the work on the page, that’s precious. That’s the gold.