Carrie Callahan

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 dollar...

There are many sentiments in writing that get under my skin. The idea of the writer as a paragon, as god, as untouchable deity of words. Writers are just people. You can be a writer to - you just have to write. Another is that you can never write anything original. Also known as "Everything has been done before". I think this is an excuse for those who cannot seem to break out of commonality. They strive for originality, but land in another pool of isn't-it-so-tragic-his-wife/child/father-died stories. The issue with this sentiment is that nearly every story is original. Predictability doesn't make this story the same story. This rebel looks/smells/thinks a little differently than the next bad boy and the girl who likes him. I think this sentiment is similar to those questions, "Why didn't I think of that?" or "Why didn't they think of this?" We look back into the Paleolithic era and ask, "Why didn't they just wash their han...