Over the years, fans and even other writers have suggested ideas that might fit in my series, and I’ve always nodded politely and said kind words, but I’ve never taken up any of those ideas. Nor have I ever been approached for or pursued doing “work for hire,” such as Star Wars novels or the like. Then the other day, a long-time reader emailed me and offered an idea, declaring he wasn’t interested in anything, no royalties, no acknowledgments… nothing, and I had to think about the matter more deeply before I could answer him.
It’s not as simple as rejecting, subconsciously or consciously, other people’s ideas. For years, I was a successful consultant, developing, packaging, and presenting their case to clients or to the government. I had absolutely no problem in taking ideas from anywhere and using them. To this day, when I’m dealing with technical presentations or commentary on the website, I still have no problem in taking or expanding on other’s insights, especially those of my wife.
But with novels… it’s different. But why?
That was when I realized something that I’d known all along, but never really verbalized. I don’t tell stories nearly so well when I don’t come up with the ideas – even in my own “universes.” Part of this is because others simply don’t know my universes/worlds as well as I do. Especially in my fantasy series, but also in a series like the “Ghost” books, so much of that world lies in my mind and not on paper or in outlines that often ostensibly workable story ideas really won’t work and be true to that world or universe.
The other part lies, I believe, in how much of my creative process is subconscious. With all writers, I believe, a good part of the creation is subconscious, but from what I’ve observed, I tend to rely on the intuitive/subconscious feel of what I’m writing more than many writers. This is neither good nor bad. Different writers have different ways of creating. Some writers very successfully can cold-plot a novel, write it to that plot, and come up with an interesting and readable work. I can’t. Yes, I know the story arc before I start, and I know the character, and the main points, challenges, and the society and culture. But, for me, not only does the story have to hang together logically, but it has to feel right.
This also might explain why I’ve never been interested in writing something like a Star Wars book or a Dune novel… or anything created by someone else, however much I may have enjoyed those stories or those worlds. I simply can’t get into those worlds as deeply as I can into my own, nor, if I’m going to be honest, do I really wish to.
This also leads to another problem, one that my editors have usually been able to catch before it manifests itself on the page before a reader – that I know something so well and so intuitively about a world that I forget to make it clear to others, because in the end, the story has to feel right to them as well. That’s also why I suspect that what I write tends not to appeal as much to those readers who prize action and technology/magic in the extreme over character.
And all that is also why it would most likely be a very bad idea for me to try to write a novel in someone else’s universe.
