“There is no such thing as a stupid idea.” What a truth this is!

Every day, aspiring writers give up their goal to become published because they feel like their ideas are stupid.

Here are a few “stupid” ideas that the authors decided to write about anyway. Let’s see how they turned out:

  • A story about a hot vampire, a hot werewolf, and a girl who doesn’t know which hot guy to go with (Twilight, best-selling book of 2008)

  • A fan fiction extension of the above story, except with less vampires and werewolves and more whips and chains and pain (50 Shades of Gray, sold over 100 million copies)

  • When this 10 year old boy discovers he is a wizard, he manages to save the school (and sometimes the world) from the darkest evil ever known to the world, conveniently just before the end of the school year! (Harry Potter, upwards of 400 million copies sold)

  • Armed with a bow and arrow and two hot guys, this young girl leads the rebellion against the nation that nuked the hell out of the last people who tried to rebel (Hunger Games, 65 million copies sold)

  • A dude is hired to change a CEO’s mind by hacking into his dreams, but upon failing, the same CEO hires the same dude to change a different CEO’s son’s mind by hacking into his dreams’ dreams (Inception, $800 million gross revenue)

  • A half-paralyzed guy on an alien planet manages to accomplish insane feats of finesse and agility in 3 months, simply by controlling an alien body. Oh and 3D! (Avatar, first film to gross over $2 billion)

  • A boat full of hot people sinks (Titanic, $1.85 billion, first movie to surpass $1 billion revenue)

As you can see, anything can be twisted to seem like a stupid idea. Since we are our own worst critics, of course we are going to see our ideas as stupid. Moreover, we’re going to compare our ideas with the great ideas we see on Hollywood and on the New York Times best selling books list.

The fact is, everything begins as a stupid idea. You can flesh that little idea out into something truly meaningful.

The ideas you think of are your ideas. Granted, there are some bad ideas–curling your hair while showering is certainly not a good idea. However, if you can give meaning to an idea, there’s no possible way it could be stupid. For myself, redemption is an important theme. Therefore, anything that involves redemption, no matter how ridiculous it may seem at first, can be meaningful to me. A story could be about two cats feuding, then one redeeming himself by performing a heroic act–perhaps with the right twist, that idea could become something amazing.

Some people may think that “stupid ideas” get in the way of their writing and therefore they stop.

I contend that if you are one of those people, it is you who is in the way of your writing. Get out of your own way and allow the ideas to flow. I hope you never get in the way between a “bad idea” and your writing. You owe it to yourself to acknowledge those ideas.