We all do it, even though we probably shouldn’t. It’s that thing where we say to ourselves, “I’m saving this idea for my next story.” Or, “That character isn’t entering until the third book in the series.” Or, “I had this great idea for a line of dialogue, but I’m keeping it for the project after next.”
As writers, we all hoard our ideas from time to time. And I think we should all try to do it a little less. Here’s why.
Hoarding Makes Ideas Less Fresh
Let’s say you’ve got an idea you’re really excited about. Maybe it’s a character, a setting, a plot point. Whatever it is, it’s a fresh idea. Why allow it to go stale?
That’s what we do when we hoard ideas. Stephen King wrote this in the classic On Writing and I agree—ideas come out best on the page when we’re most excited about them. So if an idea intrigues you, I say go for it. Don’t allow those fresh ideas time to cool off.
Hoarding Assumes We Won’t Have New Ideas
Hoarding food in preparation of the impending zombie apocalypse makes sense. Good eats are going to get scarce once the zombies shamble into town (unless of course, you are a zombie yourself). By its very nature, the act of hoarding implies scarcity. But unlike food, ideas are completely renewable resources. When we hoard them, we’re forgetting that fact.
We’re writers, right? We make stuff up for fun or work (or both), then we pour our imaginations onto the page. Just because we haven’t thought of the next idea yet doesn’t mean we never will. The idea will present itself to us when it’s ready. So let’s not get into this scarcity mindset.
Hoarding Can Limit Quality
Let’s say you’re writing a trilogy. You want books two and three to be just as good as book one, so you save some of your best ideas for the later two volumes.
My question is, do you still have enough good ideas for the first book? Because if you extract concepts and inject them into the later volumes, you might be left with a rather shriveled first book. Not a good place to be. Readers are highly unlikely to complete a series when they don’t enjoy the first entry. And if readers don’t make it to your sequels, they’ll never enjoy those great ideas, anyway.
Focus on making your current project the best it can be. Cross future bridges when you come to them.
In Conclusion
Sure, sometimes ideas must wait. For structural reasons, you might not be able to include every great idea in every story you’re currently working on. But if you have a great idea and you can incorporate it into the story you’re working on now, I say go for it. Now is the time!
Kyle A. Massa is the author of the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks and the forthcoming short story collection Monsters at Dusk. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.