bright, sparkly parts of ideas

[marycatelli]

They sparkle, they gleam, they dance around in my imagination, they are often bright with sensuous detail and vivid with action and character, and my Muse loves them, but-- they aren't stories.

Sometimes I know exactly what they are in a story:  an opening, say, where the heroine wins a magical helper, though she doesn't know it.  Sometimes I even have stories where I know absolutely everything but one crucial part.  Usually the exact solution to the problem.  (Though the one that's plaguing me now:  I know how she got the MacGuffin, I know what it does, I know she uses it once by accident, figures it out later, and uses it with forethought a third time, and what it does each time.  But I don't know how to fit the parts together.)

The annoying thing is that the ideas will not die.  Sometimes they might seem to, but they just go to sleep.  If I even glance at the original inspiration, they hop back to life, yelping "Remember me?" 

And do they have more of the story with them?

I think you can guess.

 

Comments

[izuko.livejournal.com]

That be the hell that spawns drabbles.

[marycatelli]

Hmmmm.

I've done short-shorts if not drabbles, but the idea for that has to be complete in itself. It can miss some things you need for longer -- I've done short-shorts because the idea couldn't take the weight of a full story -- but in some respects it's more merciless about what it requires.

[izuko.livejournal.com]

Drabbles are a pet peeve of mine - just below unfinished endings (I don't want to decide how it ends, for myself, THAT'S THE WRITER'S JOB!) and dream sequences.

[marycatelli]

Nice to know I have not offended in that respect. . . .

[jennygordon.livejournal.com]

Know how you feel - I have notebooks full of the flippin' things. Sometimes, if I'm really lucky, they'll coalesce into something more storylike at a later date - sometimes years later ...

[marycatelli]

Generally when they meet up with the right other idea.