A few days ago I talked about finding ideas, and even better, how to find good ideas. But what comes after that? After a writer sifts through the mountain of “not bad” and “ok” and even “pretty good” ideas and finds the one that is worth investing in, what comes next?
Because that’s what you’re doing, investing your time, energy, creativity, and care into this little story seed. How can you give it the best chance to grow up healthy and strong?
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Elizabeth Bear has a useful piece out about taking ideas to the next level:
A post office box in Schenectady.
“I used to despair of coming up with A Great Idea. Eventually I discovered that the way to make my not-so-great ideas better is to keep asking more complicated questions about them.”
For writing in general (and as previously discussed), a good first step is to check out Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain
Once you’ve done that, what’s next? I moved on to Stein on Writing.
And what do you know, I roughed out notes for that book too. If you’re interested, check out the PDF below!
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And when it comes right down to it, this is some of the best advice on creativity I’ve seen:
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And to be clear, yes, I like sparkle:)
J.R. Johnson 
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