Electric Turnip
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact

528

12/12/2022

0 Comments

 
Let's talk about stealing. Stealing ideas. It’s what I do. If you write or code or make art or create anything, you probably steal too.
I have written here several times about stealing game ideas from past games I have played. Writing is no different.
When I write, I steal.
I have probably read several hundred comic books, honestly, it could be thousands. Comic books, movies, and TV shows. More than anything else, these are the ideas I mine to fill my stories. Usually not the good stories either. I’m not going to write my version of that one amazing Twilight Zone episode. I excavate the mine of the ones that could have been. The attempts that were partially successful. The seeds of ideas that never were.
Almost every story I have written starts out with me trying to finish a story that never was. Some bit of a comic that I thought was interesting, but never explored. Some part of an anime that would have gone in a totally different direction had the creators tried to adhere to some sort of realism. I mean, I’m glad they didn’t. I watched whatever anime it happened to be so that I could see giant robots or punch wizards battle, but what a story it would be if they had just followed that other interesting thread. 
This is what I like to steal. Those ideas barely motioned toward and abandoned. What would happen if those stories were told fully.
By the time I finish a story, that original seed of an idea is barely recognizable. Sometimes it has been excised completely. Maybe there would be a few other people who know where the original idea came from, but most of them are so thoroughly modified by the end that it would be pretty difficult to puzzle it out.
I have a suspicion that this is how a lot of writers work. There have been a solid handful of excellent stories I have read recently that I could pretty easily point to what inspired them. That I could identify what they stole from didn’t make the stories worse. In fact, sometimes it made them better. More relatable. More grounded. 
Everyone does the armchair quarterback routine when they see or read something that doesn’t quite live up to the seed idea. Something that could have been a little better if the creator had only done that one thing that you thought of. 
While that probably isn’t entirely true, I think this is the place that a lot of writers come from. What would I do if this was my story. The difference between writers and non-writers is only that the first group actually try it out. They write their version. They tell the story they way they would, even if the core idea is stolen from something else. 
So this is my direct endorsement for anyone reading this to go out and steal. Was there a bit of an old Star Trek or Columbo episode that you wish they had fleshed out? Write that story. Is there a bit of a comic or game or radio play that you can’t shake, but no one else ever seems to care about it? Write that story. Run down that thread.
If you don’t make the thing that you want to see, it’s unlikely anyone else will. They are too busy stealing from some little bit of story they can’t let go. Go out and steal something for yourself.

​
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    June 2012
    October 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010

    Categories

    All
    Adventure Caddie
    Best Games

    RSS Feed

Owen McManus
  • Blog
  • Stories
    • Story 000
    • Story 001
    • Story 002
    • Story 004
    • Story 007 - Unfinished
    • Story 008
    • Story 010 - BattleWagon
    • Story 012
  • Images
    • Adventure Caddie concept gallery
    • Page Design Gallery
    • Older Work
  • 5FEAT Video
  • Videos
  • Game Experiments
    • Climb
    • Super Shapetoy
    • TurboGarbageTruck
    • 031 - Best Games - Enchanter
    • 033 - Shader Test
  • Contact