Patti O'Shea's Blog

I want a tinfoil cap. Seriously. It might be the only way to thwart the collective unconscious.

The collective unconscious theory is that all humans are kind of plugged into each other in the ether and so a number of people will have the same ideas at the same time completely independently of each other. Been there, done that, and it’s like a punch in the gut every time.

A few years ago, I had this really cutting edge idea that was dark and edgy. Too dark and edgy for what was being published then. I opted instead to work on some other projects and–you guessed it–while I was working on these other projects, other authors sold similar ideas.

This hurt and I even had an editor mention that other authors are doing something similar. I think I whimpered.

Compared to my next blow from the collective unconscious, this is small potatoes. You see, I had this awesome, cool beyond belief idea that no one had done yet! It was so incredibly unique that I emailed my writing buddies telling them about my brainstorm. Everyone agreed it was awesome and unique and had never been done.

Then a few months later, one of my writing buddies emailed me to let me know another author had sold a series with my totally cool idea.

To be completely, totally clear, there was no way either of us could have known the other’s idea so there was absolutely no chance of anything deliberate happening. It was just one of those collective unconscious things that occur to me too often.

This premise, BTW, is unique enough that if I try to do my idea now, everyone will say I copied her and I didn’t! This is where the fact that I have to work a full-time job and that I’m a slower writer really, really hurt me. In a different world, I could have sold this idea first. Instead, I’m left probably not writing it at all.

Someone please send me a tinfoil cap ASAP.

A writing friend and I were talking last week about how the story we write changes from the original idea. It’s something I’ve thought about in the past and it’s a frustration that a lot of writers experience–at least this is my take on it from conversations I’ve heard online and in real life. It’s also one of those things that we have to accept.

You see new ideas come in and they’re bright and shiny and perfect. They’re always more perfect and more shiny and brighter than what we’re currently writing. Because they’re conceptual in the beginning.

But as an idea is considered, it has to change. Logic holes are found, characters rebel and refuse to conform to the idea (at least if the idea came first and not the characters. For me, the characters often come first and tell me what their story is.), and new threads pop in, twisting the original idea because it’s the only way they’ll work together.

I don’t see this as a bad thing. Sometimes what I get once I start writing is better than the original idea. Sure, it’s not shiny any more–once you start writing, the shine always comes off because now it’s work–but that doesn’t mean it’s less than what it was. It’s simply different and different isn’t inherently bad.

I love the flow of ideas that I have. It’s actually one of the coolest things about being a writer, although I sure wish I was 1) a faster writer and 2) able to write full time so I had more hours available to get the stories down. The thing is, though, that sometimes ideas aren’t ready to be written or too slight to carry a book. That’s one of the really cool things about ebooks–because there’s no paper involved, short stories can be published now. Unfortunately, some ideas still aren’t viable to be written.

As an example, Deke from In the Midnight Hour had his soul imprisoned inside a cartoon character of himself. That idea came easily ten years earlier. I wrote in my notebook: Deke Summers PI is a cartoon character who comes to life. Or something similar to that. Short, cool premise, no story. There was nothing to write at that point.

Then right as I was finishing The Power of Two, Ryne showed up and started talking to me. We started with reams of information about her society, but despite how much detail she was providing, I had no hero for her and no real story because she was just doing her daily job. Nothing was different and stories focus on when change happens for a character. And then I had this flash. Deke! is her hero. I suddenly had a story and when/how everything changed for her.

Some ideas have a bit more than what I had for Deke, but I still know I’ll never write them and those become bedtime stories. I can’t think about books I’m going to write because it’ll keep me awake and start my mind spinning, but I’ve always told myself stories to fall asleep.

Only recently one of those “bedtime” stories is morphing into a real story. It would be a short length because it really can’t support a full book even with the premise beefed up. I’m interested to see how this is going to work. I had no names for the characters, now I have names. I had no real plot driving events because bedtime stories are simply for my personal enjoyment, now I have a plot. I had a world built, but it wasn’t very detailed–more like a set for a play. Now I have fully realized world.

It’s been interesting to watch a bedtime story change into a story I actually plan to write. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

While I was at work today, I had an idea pop into my head. I love it when this happens. New ideas are always shiny and perfect, not yet tarnished by trying to make them actually work with words or as a story.

Right now, I don’t know if this is part of a book/series I’m aware of–it could be a missing piece for something I already have in mind. I don’t know if this idea might be it’s own separate story–I’ll spend time mulling, turning it over to see if it’s strong enough to support a book. I’ll also see if new characters turn up. At this point, I don’t even know if the idea is something that I’ll end up not using.

At least not using in the foreseeable future. When the idea about Deke came in, I wrote down “Deke Summers PI is an animated cartoon figure. The soul of a man, the real Deke, is trapped inside the cartoon.” Or words to that effect. I had no story for this at all. For ten years, the note sat and then one day Ryne showed up and it turned out Deke was her hero. Even ideas that might appear to go nowhere can turn into something later. At least it can be a piece of something later.

New ideas bring an adrenaline spike for me. Hey, new shiny is always exciting. It pushes everything else aside as I run scenarios, trying to see how (or if) it will work. I’ll turn it around, look at it from different sides. I’ll try to piece it into ideas that are in queue to be written. Sometimes the reason they’re not what I’m working on is that something is missing.

If it turns out to only be a snippet, I’ll be disappointed. But I’ll write it down and hope that some day it will fit into a project. But I’m wishing for more than this. We’ll see.

One of the questions I get frequently from readers is one of the hardest to answer. Where do you get your ideas?

Everywhere. I think. Right now my head is jumbled up with all kinds of stories and characters. I can even pinpoint where some of them came from. My paranormal romance trilogy idea came to me when I saw a picture. Just that easily, I had a character in, and once that happens, the information starts pouring in.

I also have an idea for another paranormal story that came to me on Twitter. Someone posted a link to a story and gave the headline. And I was like, whoa! Immediately, I had a shadowy sense of the characters. I was going to let this one slide away or at least wait until I finished working on the other ideas I’d actually started, but this week, this idea (and a second one that kind of fits with it) has take hold and won’t stop gnawing at my brain. I need to get a notebook out and start jotting things down.

The time travel short story theoretically started back in 2005. I was working on a proposal for a story in my Jarved Nine world when Troll showed up. Right away, I was fascinated by him, but there were three other stories in this world that I’d need to write before I could do his (that was how the timing worked for what happened when) and I didn’t think I’d ever write him. Then the request came in to do the time travel, and of course, my heroine is going to the future. (I don’t even read historicals let alone write them.) And by doing time travel, it allowed me to skip ahead past Flare, Gravedigger, and Z Man’s stories and get right to Troll. You can meet their heroines (at least Flare and Digger’s heroines) in the short story and maybe someday I’ll write the romances I skipped, but wow, I love Troll.

While the three examples above show that anything can trigger a story idea for me (And sometimes I’m not even sure where they come from myself), the vast majority of what I get is because of characters. Somebody shows up and starts talking to me.

Sometimes ideas hit on two fronts. I had an idea for a romance between a hero and heroine who were both half demon and half human, but I had no characters. I was working on another project months later when Mika arrived. I had no clue who she was or what story she belonged to. In this case, it was a one-two punch. Big idea first and then characters.

Anyway the ideas come in, I love getting them. Of course, I’d love it more if I didn’t have fourteen or fifteen separate ones–each with a hero and heroine–in my head right now with no time to work on all of them, but that’s the way it goes. It becomes like triage–which idea is the one that’s got me by the throat? That’s the one I have to write first.

I was asked a couple of weeks ago to be part of The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2. The problem was that I had no vampire ideas and had pretty much said that in 2004 when it was suggested I write a vampire romance back then. So even though I agreed to be part of the collection of short stories, I had to gulp as I said yes. Not only did I have to write short–something that isn’t natural for me–I had to write a vampire love story.

This is new territory for me in another way as well. Always before, the characters have come to me first and then I worked to fit them into a project if I needed to. This is the first time ever that I had the project and the parameters of it first and nothing else. No characters. Not anywhere!

Panic didn’t quite set in, but I was soliciting help from my writing buddies. I had a chance to chat with one of them and she suggested an idea. It wasn’t the direction I was leaning, but it was interesting. I spent three or four days mulling it over, but I wasn’t getting scenes or real characters. What I had was a lot of talking and not good dialogue. It was complete info dump stuff.

And then I heard this voice in my head. It was feminine. She was a vampire, she’d been in love with a demon. Hmm, I thought, this could be interesting. I heard about vampire clan structure–at least what she knows of it–but that was about it. No conflict. No real story.

Then yesterday, as I was walking out to my car from the Evil Day Job, I hear–in first person–that demons and vampires are enemies. I think I just found my conflict! I still don’t have a story, and figuring out the short part is going to be a huge challenge, but I now have a heroine! I don’t know her name, but she’s there. The hero is hanging around, too, but he’s still shadowy and I don’t have a good grip on him yet, but I can see him and I have an idea on his name.

This is why I totally ♥ my subconscious. It went to work and came up with an idea I’m actually getting excited about writing. The other fun thing is though I hadn’t planned to do much world building–not in this length–I’m getting all kinds of info there as well. How cool is this?