POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Borrowing Ideas

By Nandy Ekle

I’m obsessed with stories. I read every minute that I can, and I’ve recently discovered a new time and place I can read. I’ve learned all about audio books and I listen to them while I drive to and from work. And I’m SO hooked. As a matter of fact, as much as I love music, I have not listened to the radio or my playlist in a long time because I’m “reading” instead.

This past week I was listening to a book while driving to work one morning and the narrator read something very interesting. He read, (paraphrased) “Imagine you are walking in the woods and you see yourself running toward you and the face on the running you is contorted with fear.”

So guess what my writer’s mind started doing. Yep. I know it’s someone else’s idea, but ideas are not copyrighted. I could take that idea and write a completely, absolutely totally different story from the one this idea came from (and you can look for something like this from me sometime in the future).

This subject sort of fits with the blog Cait wrote last week about Braylan’s miner. If you don’t remember what I’m talking about, go to Cait Collins’ blog and read Outtakes 103, Braylan’s Contest. She writes about a photo of her young friend, “Braylan” and his new friend, The Miner. She challenged readers of the blog to write a synopsis of a story about what would happen if Braylan’s miner came to life. This is an example of many different versions of the same idea.

By the way, you really SHOULD go check out Cait’s contest. Sounds like a great writing exercise, and tons of fun.

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