What do you do when. . .

[B.R.Stateham]

What do you do when you're suddenly hit with a brass coated inspiratoion-stick, and THE STORY for your greatest novel EVER blasts into your conscience in full living color? Do drop everything and beign writing? Do you take notes and wait for a later time? Do you just log it in your memory and wait until that first flush of excitement blows over. Have you trained yourself to not get exicted with that first tingling rush of excitement?

How do you know this story ranks higher than stories you've thought up earlier and filed away?

[I. J. Parker]

This sort of thing doesn't happen to me. However, if I think of a plot I can use, I have to make a note of it in my "plot book" or I'll have forgotten it the next day. Even so, the note or notes in the plot book frequently turn out incomprehensible a few months later. And even if the plot is still workable, the book tends to take its own way. My novels generally start with a situation, not a full-fledged plot. The situations are almost always connected to a custom of the time or to a particular famous site. A couple were mystery plots developed from famous old Japanese tales not really in the genre.

[Dana King]

If it's somehting I think will work as flash fiction, I knock out a draft right away. It can always be expanded later.

If I think it's novel-worthy, I let it percolate for a day or three, like Pepper. I may make a few notes, or not. I don't rush right into it, if only because I've had a couple of those instances where closer examina6tion showed the story just didn't hold enough water to justify dropping everything and starting from scratch. If the idea is that good, it will still be good in a few months when what I'm working on now can be set aside without worrying about breaking its flow.

[Pepper Smith]

I generally give the storyline some thought, see if there are ways of expanding that first idea into a full story. If the idea is still with me after three days, I know it's probably worth pursuing. Usually when I'm actually writing something, though, I concentrate on the current storyline so much that new stuff doesn't really pop up, so there's very seldom a problem of 'do I work on this story or the new one?'