Ideas are Cheap

A non-writer friend of mine recently asked me, "Aren’t you afraid someone will steal your ideas?"

She was helping me with my elevator pitch--something every writer should do, I believe--and I had to stop to think about my response. To my surprise, my knee-jerk reaction was, "No, of course not." I had to think about where my reaction came from, because it was definitely not always so sanguine.

Worrying about how safe our ideas are is something I've seen a lot online. There is a constant deluge of posts on writing forums and subreddits asking about how to protect ideas, as if they are the sole kernel of importance in our work that, if cloned, somehow destroy the original.

I think this idea comes from the way art is portrayed in movies: an artist has an "a-ha!" moment where their premise comes to them in a sudden flurry of inspiration. They knock out an entire painting or manuscript in a single sitting, or they sell the idea for millions of dollars to a publisher or multi-media company. A programmer suddenly thinks, "what about the Uber of lawn work?" and investors shower them with money and fame. The idea becomes the stand-in for the reality. If only we had a good idea, we could be successful. And so the idea itself becomes the precious thing, the commodity.

I believe this also explains the loads of posts on creative forums by people who have a great idea they're willing to tell you if you'll just write/program/design that thing. They'll even give you a percentage of the profits! All you have to do is the work part!

Thing is, ideas can't be copyrighted for a reason, and those posts exist because an idea is never enough.

Skills, hard work, and time all go into seeing an idea to fruition. Even then, no iteration of an idea is like any other. If I asked you to give me a story about a young boy who goes to magic school, you might hand me Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or you might hand me The Name of the Wind--or maybe even The Magicians. If I asked you for a show about vampires coming to a small town, you might give me The Vampire Diaries, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or True Blood. If I asked you for western-themed space opera staring a band of lovable rogues, you could offer me Firefly or Cowboy Bebop.

What makes a piece of fiction unique is its style, tone, approach, characters--you know, the things that an individual writer brings to the table.

So don't be afraid of someone stealing your ideas.

Ideas are cheap--work ethic is where the money's at.