If I'm being a tad facetious, I'd say the title you're looking for is Muse, or perhaps Professional Muse if you're looking to charge for your services. For most writers I know including myself, a lack of ideas is the least of our problems. The reverse is actually more common I think. I have sooooooo many ideas, but lack either the time to work on them, or the conviction that whatever flash of dialogue/scene/scenario I've come up with has enough meat on the bone for me to build a whole story around it. I have enough problems trying to deal with my own random plot bunnies, the last thing I need is the mental static of other people's plot bunnies clamoring for my attention.
Like Homer said, usually this goes the other way round if it's ever done. You can pay a writer to write something for you, but a writer won't ever pay you for an idea they can use in writing. It's easier to get ideas than it is to write a novel, and most writers are interested more in writing their own ideas because they care about it more. If we could find someone that paid for ideas, I'd be set for life. haha
I often have trouble finding ideas but I'd never consider using someone else's, it just wouldn't feel right and as Dr Meow says I wouldn't care enough.
@Dr.Meow Have you considered a career in Financial Domination? There are plenty of women that do it, but I am not sure if men do it as well. Just a thought. @Laurin Kelly I know, it was just a bit of fun is all. No harm, no foul. But you got to admit that is great marketing campaign.
I could really rock that whole world if it does actually exist...hmmm. Thanks, you should have charged me for that idea though, totally missed out, bro. XD
Surprisingly similar to a recent case in Bristol, England involving a bloke running around and corrects apostrophes by night
A friend of mine actually tried to sell his undeveloped idea and drove halfway across the country in the attempt. So it's a very common, very entrenched view among the public that you can sell your ideas to companies. They had to reject him before he believed there aren't teams of writers and artists just waiting to develop the ideas of people who walk in off the street.
Maybe they're out there, but I have never heard an actual writer say "Gee, I'd write something if only I had an idea. Oh, bingo. I'll hire somebody to give me ideas." However, more power to your arm, @MrsAnne , if you can find somebody like that. If you're determined enough, you might find a market. Just keep looking. OR ...experience the immense satisfaction of writing your own stories yourself. We all started from not having written one, so you're in good company here. Don't assume you can't, or that you have to learn a lot before you get started. Just start! From your post above, I gather you can string sentences together and get your meaning across. That's all you really need to begin. It's a lot of fun, and I can't think of a better way to get your ideas out there. Give it a try and see what you come up with.
Thank you everyone for your helpful insights! I guess I might have to try writing these ideas myself @jannert, I appreciate your unruffled way of gently encouraging me to take to step and write! Thank you.
In the Netflix series Love, a team of writers creates the script for a TV show. At one point, the male lead shows his script to the producer who then uses it as a basis for and episode. The credits of the TV show list him as 'story by'. Since then, I've noticed several credits listing 'story by'. This might be the kind of place to sell your ideas.
I would say that it is harder - less natural - to write of something that isn't your own idea. And I can't quite conceive of someone who desperately wants to write but gets no ideas. Such a person, perhaps, would get ideas, but not ideas about which he or she wants to write - but that wouldn't be solved by paying someone else for ideas, because chances are the writer won't want to write about those ideas either. Speaking of Netflix, or series and movies in general, there are of course script writers. Essentially, people paid for ideas, to produce them with more technical people. But that is a range of skills, from dialogue and story, to scenery, light, and sound, to the technical details of positioning cameras and whatnot. It isn't really comparable, I would say.
Yeah, same - I'm one of the rare writers who isn't bursting with ideas. Most are like you, @MrsAnne, with more ideas than they could write even if they do have the skill. And even writers like me and ajaye wouldn't buy ideas. Even if we only get two a year, that's enough to keep an average novellist busy. I'm afraid your ideas will be much more interesting to you than anyone else.
I'm reminded of those McDonald's Monopoly games. There's always that guy with Park Place offering to split the prize 50:50 with somebody who has Boardwalk. Unfortunately, ideas are the Park Place of authorship. Actually knowing how to write is the Boardwalk sticker. Dammit. Now I want fries.
I am wondering if anyone goes through or can relate to my current situation. I am trying to write a novel this summer. (I'm pretty sure it's going to take me longer than the summer.) But I keep second guessing myself if I am even writing the right novel. I feel like I could drop this project and start again with any of my untouched ideas. I don't usually have a ton of ideas, but right now I feel flooded with them. And I do complete most things I start. But I usually write short stories. So, in twenty or so pages the idea is done and on paper. After twenty pages of my novel I keep thinking is this right? I haven't planned out the novel and don't want to because as a long-time writer I know how I work best. I like to make things up as a go. But for those of you with more experience novel writing, is it normal to be tempted by new and maybe even better ideas? Why do I want to write something else now? Am I supposed to listen to that instinct or ignore it?
You probably want to write something else because starting stories is easy; finishing stories is hard. I'd be careful about applying things you know from the world of short stories to the world of novels. I mean, you may very well do better without planning your novel, but I think it would be much, much easier to write a short story without any planning than to write a novel without planning. All that said, on a more concrete level - I often get ideas for novels when I writing something else. I take a few minutes to write the idea down in a couple paragraphs, save it in my IDEAS folder, which is already full to bursting, and then go back to the current project. I'm not throwing ideas away, I'm not ignoring them... I'm just filing them for future use. It helps me get them out of my head, I think.
It's definitely normal to have several different ideas pulling you in different directions. If you really want to write a novel, though, you're gonna need to pick one. A couple of times I have written two at the same time for a little while, but after a couple of chapters one of them has become the clear winner and I've put the other on hold. I could never have written a whole novel without a plan in place, so I can't really speak to that part of it.
I have an idea folder that I throw nagging ideas into. Knowing that my ideas are safe and tucked away makes it easier to continue with my current WIP. This might be unrelated to what you're dealing with though, but after going back and reading my ideas with a fresh mind... it's lead me to create another folder, inside my idea folder, titled 'ones that aren't crap'. Turns out, a lot of my 'great ideas' aren't really all that great, and are actually just distracting.
My stories always take a lot of research. I write within a historic timeline, and in areas that really exist. That drives me to do most of the research up front, and it helps to carry me over in slow or rough spots, in my story. You can tell by the research if you want to pursue it any further. For instance I started a story "Embedded too Deep" about a reporter that was assigned to the Army Rangers, but ended up fighting with the Kurd's in Afghanistan. After a few chapters, and some research, I found out I didn't have enough knowledge or capabilities to pull it off, so I trashed it and moved on to my present novel.
Maybe it's just this is a bigger level of commitment then you're used to making and your mind is not sure how to handle it? On the other hand it could be there is a huge problem with the story and your mind knows it, and so dropping it is the best thing. Just as long as jumping from thing to thing doesn't become the habit. That's the real issue. But you also don't want to keep going with a dying horse if you have a healthy one nearby? Or maybe you need to look at the plot and see if everything is working as it should. If you started with a passion and it died later, maybe there is just some doctoring it needs on the outline and the passion will come back? I had that happen before.
I also felt flooded with ideas until I started to really nail down my main project. I'm working on the map now and its helping me to keep my goal in focus, which is finishing this story and not letting myself get distracted with other ideas. If a new idea does pop up, I'll probably jot it down in my notebook but to keep it at bay I'll keep myself moving with this current project. If my mind is busy on this current WIP, I figure I cant come up with too many new ideas, haha.
Stick to an idea. I picked the most open, one I think I could write a whole novel about, not just a great opening chapter. I write down my other ideas, maybe write a paragraph on them. But return to your book. These little ideas don't have to wait or be wasted though. Look at your book, can you incorporate the little idea into your story, a subplot, a quirk of your MC? It can alter your plans, if you plan your story, but it might help keep the excitement also
I have found that it's definitely normal to have new ideas occur to you as you are working on a novel. If I think it's promising, I might make some notes about it, and perhaps the mc, and then move on. If it's a really promising idea that I find keeps interrupting my thought processes on my WIP, I might devote, say, five man-hours to fleshing it out, maybe writing a first chapter, and then set it aside. But even that would depend on what point I'm at with my WIP.
