I'm Very Shallow and Empty and I Have No Ideas*

Over at Sandra's yesterday, Mindy said something that strikes me as a fairly common feeling among writers (though please let me know if you feel differently):

"Writers have dozens of stories to tell. The problem is deciding which one, not coming up with another one."

I don't know how common, but it seems like a sentiment often shared by writers. I know I've read and heard some variation on it many times.

But I have a confession to make.

Not me.

I don't have ideas. Okay, that's not strictly true. What I don't have is Ideas. I don't have dozens of stories to tell. I don't even have a handful of stories to tell. Right now I have my Work-in-Progress, plus a kinda rough notion of one or two things that might happen in a future novel, and then a vague image or two which might form the basis of a story set in Victoria, B.C. And, um, that's it. Fresh out at that point.

I couldn't tell you what might happen in, say, the novel after my next novel to save my life, and I probably couldn't tell you much about novel three. There are a couple of things I think I want to try, and see what might happen, but that's it.

I don't have ideas, I have images. I have sense impressions. I never think, I am going to write a story about... because I never know what any story is going to be about when I start writing it.

Lost Dog started with with a scene. In fact, it wasn't even going to be a scene in an actual story. It was an assignment for a class, an exercise. Later, I wrote another scene, completely unrelated to the first, with no clear sense of where it might go. I was interested in a room and how it reflected the person who lived there. I wanted to play with images and character and see what I got.

Later I asked myself what would happen if I had the character from the first scene and the character from the second scene collide. They were different kinds of people with different ways of seeing the world, but what if I created an intersection between the two?

I suppose that's an idea, but I don't think of it as an idea in the same sense as a High Concept Idea. I write through a series of what if questions, but they are always built off of these images of place or person. I grow stories on the level of character and theme. The what if questions drive me in directions that interest me or challenge me.

And then, well, shit happens. Stories develop a shape and an arc through the layering of these sense impressions and the answers to what if questions.

A side effect of this is when I get to the "end" of a story, open questions remain. That's not to say that I avoid resolution, but for me, any story I write is going to be a sliver of a larger story. My intent is always to present a coherent section, but a lot of the time when I get to the end of a story, I'm still asking myself questions about what came next, or what might come before. Maybe I'll write more, and maybe I won't. But the story in my mind is almost always bigger than what makes it onto the page.

Having said all this, I have to admit there are times when I actually write from ideas anyway. "A Tall House" was based on an idea. My current WIP started with an idea, a dream my wife had, though I have to admit I have all but abandoned the original concept she gave me as I've chased imagery and sense impressions. There was a point where I inserted an Idea in lost dog, probably around the second draft, though it kinda fizzled and I ended up minimizing to the point that I'm not sure anyone would recognize it.

Now, one of the questions I often ask myself is what I'm doing writing crime fiction, so often built around the Big Idea, when I never have ideas myself? Part of the answer is the kind of crime fiction that most attracts me. Character-driven, theme-based crime fiction is among my most favorite. John Straley, James Lee Burke, the Scudder novels of Lawrence Block. Yes, those books have ideas, as well as Ideas, but it's the stuff around the ideas that makes them particularly effective for me. Who and Why and not just What.

Some may say this is a semantic quibble. What I call imagery and sense impressions may be ideas by another name. I won't argue the point, though inside me they feel different from what I think people mean when they talk about ideas.

And please don't get me wrong. I read and enjoy -- often adore -- novels built around ideas, as well as Ideas. I just don't think that way. My creativity doesn't grow out of ideas. I don't write because I have stories to tell, but because I am exploring questions that interest me.

- - - - -

*Whoever can tell me where the title of this post is from first gets a free ARC of lost dog as soon as I get them, which may be soon since I have heard rumors on the internets that they have arrived in the mailboxes of at least a few readers and reviewers! :D