I"'ve got an idea for a story!"

"Great! Write it."

I always say this as enthusiastically as possible. Mainly becuase I don't want to discourage anybody but also because it sounds much nicer than "So what?"

I believe that everybody has an idea for a story. Ideas for stories are as rare as the ability to take air in through our noses. Actually, they're more common, because some people can't breathe nasally. Recounting tales is older than printing, older than writing, as old as communication itself. It's something we do everyday to help make sense of the world. We narrate our lives, directly and thorugh metaphor. We invent lives and narrate them. However, only a small handful of people tell stories that others actually want to pay to read.

I've heard people say that they had thought about a story about a school for wizards years before Rowling did, except she beat them to it, and look at how well she did with it. As if simple timing was what stood between them and the entire Harry Potter empire.

Which is rubbish. Sure, they might have had that idea. But on what planet does a story require just one single idea?

A story consisting of a single idea would be "Once upon a time there was a boy wizard called Harry who went to a wizarding school and defeated an evil guy who also happened to have killed his parents. The end." And I lied. That snippet's comprised of more than one idea. 

A story consists of millions of ideas. Ideas about characters and situations and complications and resolutions. About personalities and voices. About tension and drama and humour. Every word choice is itself an idea about effectiveness and economy.

Luckily, ideas are generous and gregarious and breed prolifically. Ideas are everywhere, and ideas come to those who are patient, and even those who are not. Some ideas are fantastic, many are not. I guess the art is to discriminate between them.

But what I've learnt since making the decision to take creative writing seriously is the more I encourage ideas, the more freely they flow. Ideas are social creatures, they attract more ideas. They like to party in my brain and are amenable to being pinned-down on paper. And the more ideas I have, the more confident I feel to cull the duds.

So, have you got an idea for a story? Well, great ... write it. And keep going.