Do You Keep an 'Idea File'
For Future Inspiration?

I've written a lot of scenes in flashes of inspiration that I've done nothing with and I am currently mining those files for pieces to either develop as independent stories or build into a cohesive novella.

Questions:

1) Any of you write things and leave them gestate for extended periods before working on them? If so, how long do you usually have to leave something to enable you give up the original version to allow the seed to become something better?

2) How do you choose whether to develop a piece into an independent story, or work it into a scene in a novella? and what is the deciding factor for you? (I am presuming you do a lot of free writing and have a stash of files you can draw upon.)   —Anne Mare Pernier

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From Gordon
They say the best ideas often come whilst sitting on the lavatory - or when one wakes up in the middle of the night and vividly remembers a dream (or maybe just part of it).

The problem is of course, most times its gone almost as soon as the chain is pulled in the former situation, and almost definitely by the time you wake up in the morning.

After kicking myself a number of times following these situations I decided to do something about it. Now there is a small tear-off pad and a ballpoint pen in the bathroom right next to the john, and a similar kit under my pillow. You'd be amazed what filthy thoughts, plots and characters have been recorded in just over a month! Try it folks - it's a winner!

From Rosasoulmate
I've been keeping an idea file for years. Sometimes they are whole scenes, but mostly one-liners. When I went through the first folder last year to type the ideas, I noticed a theme which turned into a short story. I'm typing up all my ideas so that they are on my computer.

From Meri
Yes, I keep one because I write everything down. How long they hang around kind of depends. Some of them are hanging there with a hazy idea of what they could turn into in later projects, and some of them I grab randomly and pull into whatever I'm currently working on. I don't outline, so I'm open to throwing anything in at anytime. Sometimes it puts a new spin on an idea that's fading or something I've taken as far as it can go. I'm working on a novel now and keep short erotic fiction going, turning out about one every three months so I always refer to the file for extras. They're great to have around.

From Gwen Masters
I write everything down...I have a whole folder full of little notes, scenes, descriptions, first pages of stories that are waiting to be completed. Hundreds of them, and that would be a conservative estimate. Once I got it built up I realized that it worked so well No matter what my mood, no matter what I want to write about, I have something already started that leads me right into it. I've taken one page of a story started three or four years ago, finished it in a day, and then seen it accepted for publication the next.

Write down EVERYTHING. And I do mean everything. If you see someone putting coins in at the laundromat, let's say, and something about the way they are standing or the look on their face appeals to you, WRITE IT DOWN. You will use it one day.

Added bonus Perfect cure for writer's block!

From Lucy
I am a Creative Writing student and at Uni we are always encouraged never to throw any work away. Example: we start something then think it's crap, they tell us just to keep it somewhere because then you can always come back to it at a later date and try again. I have used this idea, but as it stands right now have actually only picked up a couple of pieces and carried them through to completion. But my trusty folder is next to my bed if I get struck with inspiration.

From NG
I quite frequently have scenes that I write within the original context of a story that in the end have to be cut for one reason or another. I usually save everything. I have bits and pieces of dialogue and scenes all saved in one file (an idea file is a very apt way of putting it), and there is no specified amount of time they sit there.

Sometimes another story idea occurs that provides the perfect context for a scene I was unable to use before, and sometimes those scenes never again see the light of day.

I am an idea packrat though. I never throw anything out.

From James Sands
My idea file is stuffed with sayings, lines of dialogue, idea's for stories, scenes in towns all over the world, and everything else that doesn't seem to have a home in the present piece of work. Sometimes I stop and look them over and pull something out to use, but not often. One day, I keep promising myself, I'm going to organize it and use it all in a story or two.

From Kayla
I never throw any of my 'ideas' away, even if they turn into miserable failures while I work on them. I toss them in my "in progress" file and there they sit. Once in a while when I feel like writing but can't come up with something that inspires me to write, I take a wander through that file to see if anything grabs my attention. Happily, I have used lots of those bits and pieces over the years, either as a story or I've spliced and diced a few parts into something completely different.

I just recently stumbled upon a story I wrote years ago. I cringe when I look at the technical side of it because I was very very new to writing when I wrote it. There's nearly 10,000 words of good plot and bad structure in it and I really want to fix it but right now the idea of rewriting it is way too big for me to consider. That bugs me because it has book potential, or at least novella potential and so I really should work on it. For now, it simmers and I hope to get to it one day.

From Lisabet Sarai
I guess that I'm the odd one out. I rarely save fragments. I have a notebook for jotting down ideas, but I often find that as soon as I write something down there, the idea loses its sparkle. If I don't start working on the idea pretty soon after it occurs to me, it cools and congeals and is no longer inspiring.

This is a major problem for me, these days, because I have very little time to write in my present situation.

I do have a number of pieces that I've started and then dropped because I lost interest, or focus. I've tried picking some of them up and reworking them, but so far without much success. It makes me think that maybe my intuitions in stopping work on them were correct!

On the other hand, I really love the beginnings of several of these unfinished stories or novels. I'd love to make something of them.

At least, I'd never throw them away...!

But my best stories seem to be those that I write in one or two concentrated sittings, soon after the idea started bubbling in my brain. And those stories tend to need less revision than the ones I craft more slowly and deliberately.

From Dave Tash
I don't even want to go there. I've been cleaning out my computer files and there's all kind of partial stories, writing ideas, screenplays, entire novels that need editing you name it.

I'm tempted to just delete it all, but that would be like throwing away several file cabinets of writing!

I think a part of writing that is seldom discussed is, "What do you do with all the leftovers, the never quite finished, and all the stuff that's done, but needs LOTS of cleanup?"

From Jude Mason
A question I think about often. I keep all of my old or partial stories in dated folders. In each of those dated folders there's another folder called something like 'bits' or 'inspiration' All of them are loaded with snippets of stories, or sentences that I found extremely well done, but to be honest, most of them I don't even go and look at. I do have one folder I do visit though, it's called, "Old stories" and is full of stories I wrote over the years and most of them no one will ever see, but they're full of plots and ideas that I glean from.

So, Dave, save 'em, if you have room on your hard drive, if not maybe stick 'em on a floppy or CD. They're ideas and things you came up with and sometime when you're muse takes a hike or you're in the middle of one of those writers blocks, have a look. You might be inspired.

From Jude Mason
I think part of my problem is, I find snippets of sentences that are fabulous, I mean totally amazing, awesome, whatever, just a few words, and I want to save them to use at some later date. Well, snippets grow to monster proportions when you just keep adding them to a list, or files. Then I try to organize and it just gets worse.

Stories that have sat for any length of time on my hard drive are painful to look at. My writing has changed and I hope improved over the last few years so boy do I understand you there girl. I want to spend a month or six just going over the main ones and re-write them, lord I'd have books out all over the place.

From Anne Mare Pernier
Well, this seems to have fired up a lively discussion and I am greatly reassured to learn that I am not alone with this nasty habit of writing things then stashing them, perhaps never to be seen or heard from again.

Dave Tash said he didn't even want to venture into the unknown files of his hard drive - and all I can say, is I have about 3 years worth of free writing. I've been mining recently and I am very pleased with what I've turned up. But it wasn't, and still isn't easy. So many times I've gone through those files and tried to sort them - some of the ideas and themes are so intermingled it is almost impossible to categorize them but one thing is clear the BDSM related stuff stands apart and that's one reason I am working those themes.

I do feel I need to leave it for a long time and if I go at it and can't get anywhere with it then I know I've got to leave it awhile longer.

This is not how one writes pulp fiction.

From Amanda Earl
As one of the neophyte erotica writers of the group, I have found the current thread to be very instructive. Thanks!

I don't have much of a backlog yet because I haven't written many stories yet. Recently I had an experience where I had a couple of false starts to one of my stories. I wrote a few scenes about a BDSM club that just didn't work with the story I was writing at the time, so stored them on my computer. When I was writing my current story, "Brianna's Fire," I realized the fetish club would be a great addition, so I integrated it, and had to make only a few editing changes to make it fit with my story.

I can tell you what I've been doing with my poetry which poses similar challenges as those mentioned in this thread with regard to storing and mining one's material. I've been writing poetry seriously for 5 years or so. I keep it all on my hard drive, and on a back up external drive, plus I print out monthly booklets I call my "so far" collections. At the end of the year, I print out the year's poems and store them along with a CD for each year. I don't conscientiously go thru my older poems, but at times I realize I have written something with a similar theme or image, and then I go back and check out the poem, usually revising it. It takes some hunting at times to find the darned thing, but I'm pretty organized.

I also have journals and notebooks with me at all times, and I write down snippets of conversation, poems, signs and whatever else excites me. I keep all my journals but rarely reread them. Natalie Goldberg's book "Writing Down The Bones" has a great section about journals. I use my journals mostly just to let my hand move over the page and articulate whatever wild thoughts and doodles I'm having at the moment.

So far I haven't taken time off from writing stories since I've joined ERWA, but I've only been here since the end of March, so I guess I don't know anything about creative gestation periods yet. For poetry I have times where I'm not writing new poems, but revising and sending them out. When I'm in revision mode, I am not in creation mode. I go through periods of writer's block with my poetry, but just get thru them by reading and critiquing other people's poems. This inspires me to write also.

From Jill Bradean
I've written a lot of scenes in flashes of inspiration that I've done nothing with and I am currently mining those files for pieces to either develop as independent stories or build into a cohesive novella. Consider them writing exercises. That gives you permission to let go or use as you see fit.

Question 1) Any of you others write things and leave them gestate for extended periods before working on them?...

I carried around a story idea from high school until last year when I finally wrote it as a novel. (20 years) I didn't have the right characters, the level of writing, the whatever to set it down. From time to time I worked on it but never got more than 5,000 words into it before I lost interest or hope. Computers are a godsend. I was writing long hand which I think had a lot to do with my unwillingness to invest more time in a story I hadn't quite developed yet.

2) How do you choose whether to develop a piece into an independent story, or work it into a scene in a novella?...

One of my current projects is to approach each chapter of a novel as a short story. I have a very bad tendency to write action, dialog, action, and skip over all those things that make a scene real, like setting, emotion, etc. That's why I think writing short stories is so important. It makes me bring the reader all the way into each scene instead of hoping momentum and imagination will carry them through. But how do I decide if it's a novel or a short story? The size of the idea. A short story is a single fulcrum point in the character's life. A novel should have smaller fulcrums along the way that lead to a larger change.

From BoRadley
1) Any of you write things and leave them gestate for extended periods before working on them? ...

I have a special file called IDEAS. Sometimes just a word or two. Sometimes <gasp!> A Complete Thought! When it gets passed that one sentence, and actually goes into two or more, I put it in a separate file and it's solo disk...usually with some sort of tentative file. I have upwards of 100 of these files. Most vegetate for awhile...sometimes decades. It is also not uncommon to see some of these thing merge into a better story, or splice into two or three.

2) How do you choose whether to develop a piece into an independent story, or work it into a scene in a novella? ...

If I'm writing a short story, I always write the end first. That give the piece focus. The end may not be the same when I get there, but at least I have a direction.

If the piece is too big for that, I just jump right in and let it 'scatter gun' where it will...and follow those pieces that look most promising.

From Lesly Sloan
My hard drive is filled with things I've written, but not released to the world yet. Most will probably stay there, almost forgotten.

But sometimes I look at one of my "oldies" and decide to work on it. The best example, perhaps, was a Flasher I submitted this past year.

It had enough promise that I'm expanding it into a f/f story I may submit to Literotica, or even to a better site. On the other hand, sometimes an idea seizes me, and I run with it to see what will happen. (only works for small pieces)

Most recent example, my little tale "High Noon at Sturgis." It was written very quickly and may be expanded someday; I wanted to see if I could even go with something I'd never done before - an "imaginary" man who exists in a boy's mind, and in the reader's view of what's happening. I had fun doing that one. Gary Cooper turned out to be a character in the story.

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