Chelsea Polk has been reading Robert Sawyer, who’s led her to some great observations on novel ideas:
bq.. It’s a good idea the write about things that excite you – the things that make you bounce in your chair and follow an idea through its long strange trip, the implications, the pure fascinating obsessive geekpulsive enthusiasm that keeps you perking. you can tell that Robert was nuts about dinosaurs and cavemen as a kid. that bounce is right there and eagerly shared.
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It’s a good idea to write a character you can root for, and grumble “You utter twit” at – sometime simultaneously.
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Finally, it’s a good idea to realize that these good ideas are not seperate. They depend on each other. They could be some kind of fractal – where every peice is an echo of the whole.
(via Elizabeth Bear)
