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All Those Ideas And Unfinished Stories


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We probably all know about how you get an idea for a story and then at some point toss it aside, unfinished.

 

I came across the topic in an email of mine and thought "Hey, why not share this?", so here I am, sharing.

 

What to do with all these tons of ideas and half-finished projects? A lot of people probably don't know. I didn't know so I threw out a good bit a while back, not knowing what to do with it. That was way before I joined GA and learned all the stuff I know now.

 

 

Now, I write down the highlights of my ideas and later look at my bullet lists, to see what is worth turning into a story.

Last time I looked over my list I decided I wanted to write all of them, but none of them were novel material and would never be. However, they all seemed to have good potential to be short stories and I have now started a collection on my profile.

I have also found this idea of mine rather useful, when I get stuck or get tired of writing the novel I'm working on.

 

What do you do with all your ideas and unfinished projects?

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I add them to my never-ending list of ideas :P

 

More seriously, if I think they're story-worth, I keep it for making it a short/long story when I have time.

Though, it happened that I had ideas that weren't worth making it a story or a short. For those, I either just toss it away or make it an event in a story :)

Edited by FieldMan
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I add them to my never-ending list of ideas :P

 

More seriously, if I think they're story-worth, I keep it for making it a short/long story when I have time.

Though, it happened that I had ideas that weren't worth making it a story or a short. For those, I either just toss it away or make it an event in a story :)

 

That was actually a good idea, to make it an event... didn't think of that :)

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Creating a short story is itself an art, of course, and it takes a great amount of work to make a short story work well. I agree, not every idea can become a novella or novel strength work, but it is possible for them to become useful fodder for a great short piece--don't get rid of all of the duds. The hard part is winnowing those many ideas down; not every idea makes for a great short story, either.

 

I have the opposite problem of some writers. I keep thinking of grand works and that's not what I want to focus on. I would, at this time, much rather be concentrating on perfecting much shorter works. So it is those stories that pack a punch within a limited framework that interest me. I have a list of big ideas, no real interest in pursuing them, and that means I have an entirely different list. But it doesn't mean I'm getting rid of any of them, because, well, who knows?!

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For me, I come up with weird tangents while writing stories.

 

Like today, while plotting Book 2 of 0's and 1's, I came up with a new story idea.

 

Picture this story:

 

Do you know the story of Sodom, the city that was wiped out by an act of God, raining fire from the skies. What if I were to tell you another story about the Greed of Empires, the ignorance of the selfish, and the betrayal and murder of people for nothing more than Gold and Glory.

 

I had this idea for a short story set in ancient Mesopotamia in the city of Sodom. The time frame is around the era of the Hittite and Egyptian Empires, who were vying for dominance over the Near Eastern Trade routes. Two young Egyptian noble envoys sent by Ramesses to open trade negotiations with the strategic city of Sodom, which holds control over several tributaries of the Euphrates river due to its location. The Egyptians bring trade goods and gold to entice and bribe the city officials into giving them "sole" access, but these people had no value system or concept of trade. Instead they took the goods and offered to "share" all they have to offer with the Egyptians and Hittites equally.

 

In addition to this, beyond just the "sharing" of goods, people proposition both young Egyptian nobles, who were taken aback by the crude advances without ritual or rites (Homosexuality was chronicled in Egyptian culture, but mostly lesbianism and poly 1 guy and a lot of wives. A few gay male stories). They took to a few beds with both males and females, but disliked the constant sexual demands of these people.

 

Eventually, the two young men meet a group, who dislike Sodom's cosmopolitan/urban attitudes to "sharing" equally and sexually preferring a life of herding animals and one partner of the opposite gender, so the Egyptians make a deal to help them take over and simultaneously gain control over a vast swath of territory along with its trade routes.

 

 

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What do you guys think? Do I have a story?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I try to make short stories out of those ideas, but I always end up writing more and more and more. I do collect almost every idea I've had so far, because sometimes I'm bored and want to do something different, and those lists are perfect for that. I sort them by genre to spare myself from searching through dozens of confusing notes, but other than that, one or two sentences are enough to recall what I had in mind for them.

 

Funny enough, I've been working on a novel that's actually going really great. The idea for that was in my notes and so tiny and silly at the beginning, I wouldn't have ever guessed it could be more than a short story. But here I am, and here it is, growing steadily. :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I used to put them into an archive folder and occasionally peruse them when I needed inspiration, but then found over the years that all they were actually doing for me was taking up hard drive space. These days I keep them for a few years and then delete them. I have also become a fan of hitting the delete key immediately if I feel that the story is not and never will go anywhere. At the moment I seem to be in the habit of starting but not ending stories, so those which I keep coming back to I keep, those that I don't touch in a year or more I get rid of. It seems to work well for me at the moment.

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  • 5 years later...

From the moment I started writing, which was way back in 1989, I have kept notebooks that I keep story ideas, fully written scenes, dialogue that I thought sounded cool, and all my dreams that I remember and write down. I have dozens of notebooks that I read from time to time and pull out a scene here, a random bit of dialogue there, elements that didn't lead anywhere when I had them but came in handy sometimes years later.

I also have little scraps of paper, bits that I wrote in my phone notes section, on the margins of my favorite books. I collect ideas and since I never know when they might come to fruition, I keep them.

I bought a USB drive that I doubt I will ever fill up for those stories that I'll probably never use. That way I still have them but they don't clutter up my hard drive. I guess I like to keep those around to remind myself how far I've come since I started this madness.

J

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  • 3 weeks later...

And Here's a new one to the list, freshly abandonned:

 

Experimental Fan-fiction isn't my forte and sadly there was no audience for it. So here's the spoilers on what would have happened in the story if I did continue:

-They confront the Demon from the Sinister movie franchise, aka Boogeyman, who manipulates kids to kill their entire families and kidnaps them into his hell realm of visual memory, in the form of 8mm home movies that can never be destroyed.

-Adam and Michael already have a relationship tighter than boyfriends or a lot of partners, but they aren't "perfect". I wanted to explore the concepts of co-habitation and living with someone you intimately know, but don't actually know. You can sleep with someone for years, but still be strangers.

-Sex between them is not akin to masturbation despite them sharing one body, human physical needs and celestial needs are very different according to the lore within the TV show.

-Alternate Bobby Singer will be akin to main universe Bobby's character to Sam and Dean, a mentor and father figure to Adam, while holding a deep unsettled grudge towards Michael for his views on "angel"-superiority. For non-fans of the show, Alternate Bobby singer came from an alternate universe, where without Sam/Dean, Michael defeated Lucifer and rules as a dictator with his Angels, hunting humans in a genocidal war. I want to explore the themes of Reconciliation and possibly some Holocaust themes through their interaction. A lot of rich story could have been made here.

-My epilogue will flash-forward to the final scene of Michael in the TV show, but unbeknownst to Sam/Dean/Castiel/Jack, Michael knew their plan to set him up and trick God/Chuck through him, he allowed it and hid that part of himself, the last traces of humanity from Adam. He's making a noble sacrifice in the end, but doesn't need anyone to acknowledge or mourn for him as a hero anymore, he's done with seeking glory or approval. He just wanted to give meaning to his life and that of Adam, bit players on a stage perhaps they were and through their time together they became far more than even God himself. It's a poetic note to end that characters can surpass their authors

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Anyway, those were my notes for what this story could have been @cehammock, if you were wondering that's how I'd continue the story and ended it

Edited by W_L
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7 hours ago, W_L said:

Anyway, those were my notes for what this story could have been @cehammock, if you were wondering that's how I'd continue the story and ended it

At least I know how it was going to end. Kind of romantic. Hope some day you will finish it.

By the way, I started to make a list of gay and bi male writers of Supernatural fan fiction, and included you on the list. I am making a new list post for my website. Do you know of anyone I should include? I have not posted it yet, still writing. Here are my criteria:

  • Must be gay or bisexual male writing supernatural fanfiction (I am curious how their fiction is different from women writers).
  • The fanfiction should be gay themed (I suspect most will be Destiel stories, but other romantic combinations are welcome too: Sam/Gabriel, Adam/Michael are good too) 
  • Not smut. Stories can have sexual content, but not sex for the sake of sex. Stories that are romance, adventure, paranormal, thrillers, ect.

I have a feeling this list might end up being longer that I expect it to be.

 

 

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These ideas are the seeds for new stories just waiting to germinate. They’ll come to you forever. It’s too bad we have such a limited time to get to them all and cultivate them.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 7/17/2021 at 12:02 PM, MrM said:

These ideas are the seeds for new stories just waiting to germinate. They’ll come to you forever. It’s too bad we have such a limited time to get to them all and cultivate them.

You are right, I am borrowing several ideas from the past unfinished stories to write my horror Sci-Fi story. Not sure how well received it will be or if people will get the concept I am going for. Some of the ideas I had developed from Supernatural fan-fiction will be part of the story I am writing.

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I do nothing with them.  Just sitting there, watching me, their oppressive presence ever growing, finding increasingly efficient methods of burying me in shame and guilt until I can't even begin to think about writing and abandon the whole process.

Did I say that out loud?  Hmm.  I think it's time to move past this.

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I have kept everything. I go back and read them from time to time. I realize why much of them ended up being discontinued. One story I did delete because I made the mistake of attempting it without researching the subject matter (Law Schools). I ended up being off-base with it and just decided against continuing it. Mostly though, I discontinue a story because I started out with an idea and then shied completely away from it OR I fell out of love with the idea completely and could like the idea again if I just changed some things about the story.

They are older stories as well, so me getting back into them or posting them are a stretch. They may just become my guilty pleasures that I either rewrite 100% from scratch or just continue down the road I am currently traveled and the story never see the light of day. Either way, my unfinished works are still around. You never know when going back to them can be a breath of fresh air and strike up some good motivation again. 

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I've recently returned to a story I wrote for NaNoWriMo a few years ago. It was messy, unedited, had a few plot holes and a rushed ending (so I could finish it by the end of November) and was only 55,000 words.

I've now almost rewritten the whole thing, it's gone up to 92,000 words and I'm fairly pleased with it. It's one of those I won't start to post until it's done as there are some complicated plotlines. But it goes to show old ideas can be useful.

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2 hours ago, Mawgrim said:

I've recently returned to a story I wrote for NaNoWriMo a few years ago. It was messy, unedited, had a few plot holes and a rushed ending (so I could finish it by the end of November) and was only 55,000 words.

I've now almost rewritten the whole thing, it's gone up to 92,000 words and I'm fairly pleased with it. It's one of those I won't start to post until it's done as there are some complicated plotlines. But it goes to show old ideas can be useful.

That's cool, it's nice to hear an old stories being given a second life by its author. :D

Edited by W_L
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