Torturing my Babies

I used to think that having a great idea for a story was pretty much the be-all, end-all necessity for producing good writing. It seems to be so on the surface - you have a great idea, you write it out and expand it, and bingo, you're Hemmingway.

However, over the years, I've come to realize that it's not really about having the idea. It's about torturing it. It's about attacking it and belittling it, and forcing it to defend itself. It seems a little weird to be talking about ideas as if they were people, and stranger still about waterboarding them, but for me, at least, its really true. It's said that great drama comes from conflict, and I have to say that my best stories have come out of when I am in conflict with my ideas.

It all starts with the notion that everything has already been done. All the stories I want to tell have already been told, by better and worse writers than I am. Even if I actually write the story, it will be nothing but a footnote... a wart on Tolkein's or Asimov's literary big toe. No! my idea cries... I'm different! I'm good! People will enjoy me!

No you're not, I say. You're the same old shit. You're not? OK, prove it.

And thats where we get going. A good idea can defend itself. Can continue to intrigue me even when I subject it to my most withering self-doubt and cynicism. If I get through that stage, I know I have something I want to work with. If the idea cant defend itself, then I know it would have been shit in the end anyway.

It happens again at various points throughout the process. "Magic can't work that way in this world. It's stupid."

"OK, then how about this way?"

and so on and so forth, until I come to a point where I have no more criticisms or barbs to throw at my precious little baby.

Sooner or later, the story is done, and then its time for other people to torture my baby... which is somehow infinitely harder to watch and accept. Still, its necessary, and it often helps just as much.

I'm not saying that I think of my ideas as seperate personas, or that I think of them as coming from some other place... just that taking the role of a merciless interrogator and judge has helped my writing immensely. Its hard - it means throwing out things that at first blush, seemed like genius... but in the end turned out to be crap.

I think that the world is indeed merciless. Publishers, editors, readers, have no reason whatsoever to cut me any magic pants. If I send a story out unprepared, its going to get savaged, torn apart. It all comes down to who is doing the tearing... them or me. It's easier to do it myself. Less embarrassing. Hurts less when a flaw is exposed. It's just easier. They're my babies, after all.