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Writing Ideas rather than stories (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by danio13@lemmy.world to c/keepwriting@lemmy.world

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Like the title says

Is there any merit to writing seeds of a plot rather than a whole plot? Usually I have another commission stories on my ideas, but the amount of an actual story I have written for the past 5 years I can count with one hand.

Not to mention the lack of feedback of just my story ideas is....depressing. Like I'm invisible.

Thoughts? Or am I just being a wuss?

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[–] Libb@piefed.social 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Not to mention the lack of feedback of just my story ideas is….depressing. Like I’m invisible.

I'm not sure to understand your question, but if you're wondering why people don't notice your 'story ideas', it's most likely because ideas are cheap.

Like mentioned already, most stories stem from an idea that is true. But the idea itself doesn't matter that much, it doesn't make any story worth reading.

We all get ideas. On a typical day, I will get at least 2 or 3 ideas I will want to write down just in case I could use them, and that is ignoring the many more I will ignore because they're obviously worthless. Of those 2 or 3 daily, most will never turn into anything... or only years later.

Ideas are cheap. Stories are not. Stories are a lot of work. Days, weeks, sometimes months, if not years worth of work… And I think that's the main reason why so many people who would like to write (or I should say who would love to publish) a story will never do it: it's just too much work to finish writing an actual story. They have an idea they like, they think they just have to write it down to get a cools story and then they quickly realize they were wrong.

If you don't believe me (good on you to not believe some random dude saying random shit), you can make a simple test by answering those questions all by yourself: what is the latest fiction (novel, short story) you enjoyed reading? Did you just read the blurb (which tells the story main idea in as few words as possible) and put the book back? Or did you enjoy reading the whole story even after reading said blurb? And what did you enjoy, then?

See? Ideas are not what make a good story ;)

spoiler

'oh, I have this cool idea about a post-climate change novel, after human society has fully collapsed, in which a dad and his young son's try to survive while walking from one place to another one further south, while trying heir hardest to remain decent human beings while other people around them survive eating one another' is nowhere close to McCarthy magnificent 'The Road' but that remains the core idea behind this most amazing novel.
'A young dude loves a young lady, but their families being foes oppose them dating one another, still they try hard to get together despite their respective families... this will not end well.' is not much compared to the classic that is Romeo & Juliet.
"A powerful dude who was left by his wife for another and younger (powerful) dude from a foreign country, decide to get her back at any cost, declaring a 10 year long war with that foreign place and involving his many friends in it." That's an idea, but that has little to do with that other classic (and masterpiece) that is The Iliad which barely focus on a very short period of those 10 years, on a few events during that long war. The same with it's as impressive follow up, The Odyssey, which also tells another 10 lost years (making it 20, total) from one of the characters (Odysseus) from the first poem that is trying to get back home despite the constant set backs from angry/revengeful gods wanting to prevent him to do so', which in turns tells nothing about that great piece of literature telling the heroic voyage of Odysseus and him managing to get back home under a disguise, back to his wife and son just in time to kill all those other men that, after his 20 years absence, decided it was more than time for pretty wife to pick a new husband.

[–] danio13@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

....now I'm not sure what you are trying to say