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Thursday's Tip
6 years ago
The kids went back to school last week, so I've been a little busy. All good stuff though. Nothing bad. I'll be back to posting again soon. I just kept getting a little... Squirrel!
Some authors are afraid to use their good ideas all at once. I compare it to a common thing in table top role-playing games. I've been in a group with a DM that's very generous on giving out single use items. Most people there had three decent listed on their character sheets when someone asked him why he kept giving them out if there weren't good chances to use them.
He laughed.
Then he pointed out several times when we could have used the items--times that were specifically put in the story for those things to be used.
Then he explained. He gives out items items like that because the players feel like he's being very generous, but at the same time, he knows that we'll be afraid to use them, always second guessing that some time where we'd need it more would come up later.
Ideas are like that. Writers will come up with a really emotional scene or great comeback or even just a good line of dialogue and then they never use those ideas because they figure that a better place will come up for them later, or they figure that if they use up all the good ideas at once, they'll run of good ideas.
Here's my tip then: use them when you can. The "better" time never comes. And if you're worried about not having enough good ideas... well... um... If you run out of ideas that fast... maybe you should... um... maybe you shouldn't... heck... maybe you should just put them all into one great book and live off that. There I said it politely. :)
Some authors are afraid to use their good ideas all at once. I compare it to a common thing in table top role-playing games. I've been in a group with a DM that's very generous on giving out single use items. Most people there had three decent listed on their character sheets when someone asked him why he kept giving them out if there weren't good chances to use them.
He laughed.
Then he pointed out several times when we could have used the items--times that were specifically put in the story for those things to be used.
Then he explained. He gives out items items like that because the players feel like he's being very generous, but at the same time, he knows that we'll be afraid to use them, always second guessing that some time where we'd need it more would come up later.
Ideas are like that. Writers will come up with a really emotional scene or great comeback or even just a good line of dialogue and then they never use those ideas because they figure that a better place will come up for them later, or they figure that if they use up all the good ideas at once, they'll run of good ideas.
Here's my tip then: use them when you can. The "better" time never comes. And if you're worried about not having enough good ideas... well... um... If you run out of ideas that fast... maybe you should... um... maybe you shouldn't... heck... maybe you should just put them all into one great book and live off that. There I said it politely. :)
