From: seawasp@sgeinc.invalid.com   
      
   Posting this here because it's very composition-relevant. Part of my   
   series of posts previously put up on my site (most of them are just   
   reviews or similar material, so they just go on r.a.sf.w)   
      
      
   	One of the most pernicious – and ultimately damaging – myths that   
   newbie or would-be authors often buy into (and I do not exclude myself   
   from this!) is that "my ideas are valuable!" Specifically, they think   
   their ideas are so valuable that they must HIDE those ideas to keep   
   other authors or publishers from stealing them.   
      
   	In almost all circumstances, this is utterly untrue. Believing this   
   myth severely constrains a prospective author (or other artist) because   
   they look at other authors and editors as, at best, competitors, and at   
   worst as potential enemies. They try to hide the best elements of their   
   work, sometimes going so far as to insist that they should have a   
   contract before they reveal the awesome plot twist or other idea that   
   they believe is the key to their future success.   
      
   	In truth? Most other authors are your potential allies. Make friends   
   with other authors, they're likely to give you a leg up when you need   
   it, talk up your stuff, maybe even help you in more material ways. The   
   fact that I have a career at all is directly due to the fact that a   
   fellow, and far more experienced and better placed, author – Eric Flint   
   – took the time and energy to read my work and, having decided it was   
   pretty good, put it in front of Jim Baen, his publisher. My   
   self-published work Polychrome would have probably turned out a lot less   
   impressive and professional without the help of another pro – Lawrence   
   Watt-Evans – who had the experience and knowledge, and willingness, to   
   assist me.   
      
   	Editors and publishers may not be, strictly speaking, your allies, but   
   they are the people you want to like you and your work. They're the   
   people you want to impress. Holding back the most awesome and neato   
   ideas and "elevator pitches" is shooting your potential career in the   
   foot – and worse, if they get the idea that you are doing that, you've   
   made an automatically bad impression by implying that they could be thieves.   
      
   	HAS it ever happened that another author, or publisher, has stolen   
   someone's work, published it as their own? Yes, of course it has. But   
   it's rare. Unless you spend your life deathly afraid of being struck by   
   lightning, you shouldn't be concerned about having your stuff stolen   
   that way, because it's more likely – considering the number of stories   
   submitted to publishers over the years and the number of actual thefts –   
   that you'll be struck by lightning than be victim of theft of your story.   
      
   	The latter phrase is important: theft of your story. Note that I did   
   not say "theft of your ideas". Ideas are not copyrightable except in   
   very limited cases. Another common result of the unfortunate "I must   
   protect my ideas!" mindset is that the would-be or newbie author sees   
   something similar to a story they submitted somewhere come out, and   
   conclude "OMG, they stole my ideas!!"   
      
   	No. Almost certainly no, they did not. Because – here's the thing –   
   ideas are almost worthless. One of the most common painful things   
   encountered by almost all established author is the earnest wannabe who   
   comes up to the established author with a pitch that amounts to "I have   
   this awesome idea! I tell you the idea, you write the book, we split the   
   fortune 50/50!"   
      
   	It's really hard to tell the earnest fan – especially without mortally   
   offending them – that (A) their idea is probably not even vaguely as   
   awesomely original as they think, and that (B) it's not the idea that   
   makes the money, it's the solidification of the idea into a particular   
   expression – the story – that takes the effort AND makes the money. The   
   idea is just the start.   
      
   	(A) is why, alas, I could not sue the various people like White Wolf   
   and Buffy and other Urban Fantasy people for stealing my idea of the   
   modern-day vampire/werewolf hunting hero, even though I invented Jason   
   Wood and Verne Domingo and his people long before White Wolf was born   
   and a decade and more before Buffy entered Sunnydale. On the positive   
   side, it's also why Joss Whedon, Jim Butcher, and the producers of   
   Underworld couldn't harass me.   
      
   	In summary, point (A) is "It has ALL been done before. Probably before   
   you would believe it was ever done." For example, the "awesome concept"   
   of "The Matrix" was "the world you know is really just a projection from   
   a machine". Not only was that also done at about the same time (better,   
   in my view) by The Thirteenth Floor, but you could trace the idea itself   
   back to The Machine Stops, by E.M. Forster in 1909, and in general   
   concept all the way back to Plato's Cave (ancient Greece).   
      
   	I had to accept that – in all likelihood – I would never have an   
   "original" idea, in the sense of "wow, I've never heard of anything like   
   that before". This is true of virtually all authors. I think I've   
   encountered maybe two or three new ideas in my entire life, none of them   
   mine.   
      
   	We all build on those that came before us (one reason that the current   
   stagnation of the public domain is a serious problem for writers), and   
   what matters isn't the core idea; it's how we take that idea and connect   
   it with this idea and then express it through these approaches to create   
   our stories.   
      
   	This is where point (B) really comes in. Ideas by themselves are   
   WORTHLESS to an author. Not, obviously, because we don't have to get   
   ideas for our stories, but because we already have waaaaayyyy too many   
   of them. I don't need your ideas, I need time to write mine. Oh, there   
   are exceptions – an author may have an idea that they can't actually   
   write by themselves, and need someone else to write part of it (that's   
   how I came to write Boundary and sequels with Eric) – but for the most   
   part, authors literally are overflowing with ideas. I have enough ideas   
   to support probably a dozen new series, let alone additional single   
   works, just sitting on my hard drive in one file. That's without trying.   
   They just pop into my head and I work at them for a bit and write them   
   down, then get back to the paying work.   
      
   	The other reason ideas themselves are worthless is that the   
   interpretation of the idea changes almost limitlessly with different   
   authors. There were editors that would demonstrate this directly: they   
   would send three separate authors an identical prompt – a capsule story   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)