Ahmet Ceylan's picture
Ahmet Ceylan from Turkey is reading nothing yet... December 14, 2012 - 7:37am

I think i have a good idea for writing. But still need help. I want to ask to people somethings about my idea but i dont want to they steal it. But in the other hand, i have to tell about my idea to people in like this place, disgussion areas or forums. Or just face to face. How can I cover my idea by having help about it?

 

I know its paranoiac. But i just wonder. Dont you scare? 

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated April 25, 2013 - 8:45am

First, the odds of this happening are insanely low. People who do creative things never get through all their own ideas, and they love their ideas (often to the point of not seeing when the idea sucks) so they are way too busy to use yours 99.9% of the time. I mean it could happen, but you could also get hit my a meteor from the shower we've been having. There are so many other things you'd to work on regarding your writing this isn't the best thing to worry about.

Second even if they do 'steal' your idea is mostly to plug a hole in their idea, and probably won't be something most folks will even remember if they do read the other work. I need a cool pet, oh man Ceylan has a cool dog who likes cheese in his story! Yonk! And it will be 10 pages about a supporting character in their 300 page novel.

Thirdly Ideas aren't apples. If you want to write about a dog who like cheese, the market won't go away because someone else wrote about a dog who like cheese first. If anything in the highly unlikely even they get published it will make it easier for you to get published. Harry Potter paving the way for Hunger Games and all that.

Fourth, it isn't really your idea. I made the dog who likes cheese thing up as a silly example when I started typing this, and it took me about 45 seconds (literally less than one minute) to find a book about a dog looking for cheese because he liked it so much. A children book, but you get the idea. Anything you can think of has already been done. More than once. And published. So just accept that no matter how special and new it feels, it isn't the first, and it won't be the last.

http://www.amazon.com/Sherlock-Missing-Cheese-Stevens-Crummel/dp/0761461868/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355499625&sr=1-5&keywords=dog+cheese

swordfighter's picture
swordfighter December 14, 2012 - 10:03am

hi all 

Dwayne is absolutely right, do not be afraid of sharing your idea's or story to get some up (if anyone does let me I give you the number of some hit men) LOL 

I'm sure there has been some great story that never got told because they had the some fear as you do.

don't let that happen to you!!!  Get all the help you need  you may have the next star wars who knows 

I look foreword to reading your story's. 

PS  if some one does still any part of your idea's so what it's your story they will not even come close to it being as good as yours  Why?  they stole!  it's. never as good as the original.

 

sean of the dead's picture
sean of the dead from Madisonville, KY is reading Peckerwood, by Jed Ayres December 14, 2012 - 10:17am

This is my favorite thread EVER! 

Vonnegut Check's picture
Vonnegut Check from Baltimore December 14, 2012 - 11:07am

You can try the poor man's copyright: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_man's_copyright

bryanhowie's picture
bryanhowie from FW, ID is reading East of Eden. Steinbeck is FUCKING AMAZING. December 14, 2012 - 10:59am

Q: How can I protect my idea?

A: You can't.

Brandon's picture
Brandon from KCMO is reading Made to Break December 14, 2012 - 11:01am

You have to have your mind militarized...like Inception.

Ahmet Ceylan's picture
Ahmet Ceylan from Turkey is reading nothing yet... December 14, 2012 - 12:37pm

well, it was just some kind of hypothetic think. i know. but i just wondered. thank you all for your answers. but dwayne i just dont agree only one thing that you said. there are still original ideas. :)

 

i dont know maybe i think like this because my last watched movie is "the words" :) 

you should watch it too people :) 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1840417/

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch December 14, 2012 - 1:02pm

I promise not to steal your idea. But I'll steal Chester's because he's been distracted lately.

Ahmet Ceylan's picture
Ahmet Ceylan from Turkey is reading nothing yet... December 14, 2012 - 1:27pm

Well I dont see anybody in here as a potential thief :) but my fear is usual. in my county, (Turkey) there are so much idea thieves. :/ and thanks Liana for your promise :) i can sleep well now :)) 

ReneeAPickup's picture
Class Facilitator
ReneeAPickup from Southern California is reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig December 14, 2012 - 1:40pm

Two thoughts--

1) Your fear is "usual". I think we've seen at least a couple posts from different people right here. Usual, though, doesn't mean legitimate. My advice would be to sit down and write out these ideas in the most cohesive way possible, and then post it to the workshop. I feel like the workshop here is pretty safe--I mean I don't think people are putting in the effort and money to go in and swipe ideas for their own work--and people will be able to give you feed back.

 

2)Turkey! Ahhh. I have a bit of an idealist love affair with the country (I've never been there). My husband was an archaeologist in Turkey for many years, I love hearing him talk about the history and his experiences living there.

Ahmet Ceylan's picture
Ahmet Ceylan from Turkey is reading nothing yet... December 14, 2012 - 1:48pm

well, yeah, our history is fantastic. (but i dont like my country's present day) i hope you will come and see here some day. you can't live here as a citizen but definitely its a great place for tourists.

 

and the other thought :) i really didnt mean litreactor community :) i asked that here because i trust the people here. i loved here. but my english is not cool. so i have to disguss my ideas in my language. so i needed some advices. and i think i got them now :) whatever happens i will fight my fears :) 

i really really thank you all :) 

ReneeAPickup's picture
Class Facilitator
ReneeAPickup from Southern California is reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig December 14, 2012 - 1:54pm

I do hope to visit someday!

And I didn't think you meant LR. I was suggesting it because you seem to view this as a "safe place" (as do I) and the workshop is even safer, as only paid members can view and participate. There's even a little box you can check so that your story's title won't even show up as being in the workshop outside of the site.

Bob Pastorella's picture
Bob Pastorella from Groves, Texas is reading murder books trying to stay hip, I'm thinking of you, and you're out there so Say your prayers, Say your prayers, Say your prayers December 16, 2012 - 9:31pm

Ideas are not protected. Copy write extends to a specific story, and protects character's names as well as specific, unique story points that could have only been derived from said characters. In other words, you can't have a character called Judge Holden in 1880's Old West scalping indians in your story without being sued, and ridiculed by your peers. If said story and character are in the public domain, it's fair game. Titles are not protected as well. If you feel your idea is so unique, and it's probably not but I'll humor you, then don't share it with anyone, so that at least you'll feel better about someone possibly stealing it. 

I believe that I could write an idea on a slip of paper and give copies to 100 different writers and get 100 different stories. I could even include specific characters and plot points and still get 100 different results. We write what we know, even if we're given the prompt. 

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like December 17, 2012 - 1:28pm

It depends on how you define "idea."  Whether you can be protected depends -- more specifically -- on how the law defines "idea." If you want legal advice, don't ask here. (No offense to anybody.)

alexgamen's picture
alexgamen from Argentina is reading 1Q84; The Way of Kings January 6, 2013 - 2:34pm

If someone 'steals' your idea and turns it into such a good novel that it's published and highly successful... then it wasn't your idea at all which made it successful, just the actual work put into it.

An 'idea' doesn't make or break a novel. It's all in the execution. Some novels have inane plots or no 'big idea' in them but they absolutely work because of the execution.

So you should worry about the execution first of all. Unless you want to be like the assholes at Apple that sue every other company for putting round edges on gadgets and crap like that.

 

John Loeffler's picture
John Loeffler from Brooklyn, NY is reading Gallatian Canyon by Tom McGuane January 6, 2013 - 3:20pm

The only way to protect your idea is to turn it into a work of fiction and either register the work with the copyrighting agency in Turkey, whatever that is, or to publish it, which automatically extends copyright protection to your work. At least that's how it works in the US.

Pivoting off what someone here already said, it is extremely hard to turn an idea into a finished product. If I told a friend about a great idea I had for a novel, the odds of this person stealing that idea is ludicriously low. Telling your idea to other writers is likewise going to be very safe. I don't have enough time in my life to turn all of MY ideas into finished works, much less someone elses. The act of turning an idea into a novel is so laborious, so time consuming, that no one really steals these things. Even if they try to, don't worry, because their plot and characters are going to be so divergent from yours that very few people would even recognize that the two stories are similar, much less derived from the same source "idea."

Besides, trying to hide your idea means missing out on one of the better parts of writing, which is sharing your ideas with other writers to get their imput and feedback on how to make your story better.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 6, 2013 - 11:13pm

If someone 'steals' your idea and turns it into such a good novel that it's published and highly successful... then it wasn't your idea at all which made it successful, just the actual work put into it.

The second half of your if/then statement simply does not follow.
It also excludes the fact that ideas came be imagined through effort, i.e. "actual work."

--------------------------------------------------------

RE: everything --- Yeah, most writers worth a shit wouldn't bother to consciously "steal" an idea. Nevertheless, everyone is influenced by something or another. Have you never told a joke you didn't actually write? It's natural, and it doesn't end with amateur material. In other words, if you "put it out there," people might take it without meaning to and use it without realizing. It is silly to discourage caution regarding one's intellectual property and creative work. There are a lot of people who do just throw it all out there with CC license and call it a day; nothing wrong with that.

Ultimately, I don't get why anyone would try to convince someone that ideas aren't important, or worth caring about. If you don't care about ideas, don't write; save some space; quit writing bullshit that you believe could've come from anywhere or anyone; don't add another book to the world.

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated January 7, 2013 - 12:20am

J.Y. have you taken head trauma today? If you really think that that telling someone to stop worrying and write is bad advice, or that a idea is the hard part of writing I'm not really sure what to tell you.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 7, 2013 - 2:29am

Dwayne --- Telling someone to go ahead and write is different from telling them ideas don't matter, or that good ideas are easy. If they're so easy, why are the plots to most books so ordinary and familiar? Why do people rehash shit so much, if it's so easy to make up original material?

And when I wrote "RE: --- everything," I meant for that to make it clear that portion of my post was a general rant, not a direct response to someone's particular comment.

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated January 7, 2013 - 11:02am

Because most people won't put in the work to make something uncommon, and if they do odds are low many folks will see it. Most people don't want the best story they ever heard, they want the same story they've always heard. Dracula and Twilight have the same idea, a vampire falls for a pretty young mortal girl, but I'd say it is safe to say they are very different stories.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 7, 2013 - 12:25pm

If you want to limit the term "idea" to something so general as "a vampire falls for a pretty young mortal girl," then yeah, maybe "ideas" aren't that big of a deal; but to limit the term so something so general as that would be oversimple and unrealistic.

Ideas are more than the premise of a story put into the most general possible phrasing. "A vampire who sparkles" is an idea (though not one I think is very appealing) and this sparkling vampire can fall in love with a girl [idea] and fight against other vampires [idea] and keep going to high school even though he's 800 years old [idea] and on and on.

To tell people not to worry about new ideas because some readers don't appreciate them is contrary to the adage "know your audience." You can write for slack-jaws if you want, but not everyone does.

Flybywrite's picture
Flybywrite from Rocky Point, Long Island is reading The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, by Stephen Crane January 7, 2013 - 12:43pm

"Because most people won't put in the work to make something uncommon, and if they do odds are low many folks will see it. Most people don't want the best story they ever heard, they want the same story they've always heard." 

I think the above's accurate, and also that the more original and complex an idea is the more the possibility of overreaching and that it will suck opens.  The risk seems more worth it to me then warming up old recipes, and even if piles of ash are the end result.  Because when books are enigmatic in the extreme and also work, some subjective miracle made of surrounding circumstantial pulses get's born and nothing's better, and I think the idea that sort of expression may be possible is what drives many writers.       

There was this event called Pitchapalooza in a nearby book store where a lucky fifty out of hundreds of applicants are given a minute to "...wow a three-person panel of experts," with a pitch of their original book idea.  Attached to the event a top ten list of suggestions in answer to the question, "Do you want to write a good book?"  I'm a bit overbaked in the way I describe my ideas, at times, so I'd barely managed to avoid weeping by the time I got through the ninth suggestion, but the tenth took me over the edge:

"Show us what's unique, exciting, valuable, awesome, unexpected, about your project, and why it's comfortable, familiar and proven."

 

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated January 7, 2013 - 1:08pm

I tell people not to worry about new ideas because I don't believe they exist. "Nothing new under the sun," and all that.

You can expand the idea out as much as you want, you can dislike Twilight and everyone who reads it, whatever. None of that is relevant to the point I'm making, which is that the odds are low anyone will even try to take your not really new idea. They have to find it, do something with it, and sell it. If picking out which ideas would sell was easy you wouldn't have millions of people trying to do something with their idea. We are all mostly too busy with our own ideas, the one we had and fell in love with. Twilight did well because S.M. probably loved it, or at least was into that kind of thing. Her readers are into vampire high schools werewolf love triangles. If S.M.'s wasn't the real writer of the first book odds are she couldn't have made more books/stories they were into, even if those stories suck. Do you really think anyone has ideas so good that a plagiarist will read and think, "Wow, I know this will sell! I'll go through hundreds of man hours to get this revised, edited, and rejected till I can get a major publishing house to put it out/self published in a way that it will make me some money!" If you do, and think you have are writing such a idea, yeah spend sometime protecting it. For the most part I think that is rare.

Would it be silly to put your whole manuscript for a novel up on website that you think is shady and never check on it? Yes, of course. Take basic protection, but then don't worry about it. Just write something, copy right it as best you can, and move on. Everything else is an excuse/obstacle that will slow you down from writing. You are much better off writing a novel, getting it stolen, seeing someone make a billion dollars you don't get money or credit for, and going back to write a 2nd to try getting published if the other option is not write/improve your writing because you are spending time worried about someone taking your work.

Jack Campbell Jr.'s picture
Jack Campbell Jr. from Lawrence, KS is reading American Rust by Phillipp Meyer January 7, 2013 - 2:10pm

I agree with Dwayne on this. Ideas are a dime a dozen, with the rare exception of such a great idea that it alone can make a book. If you think you have one of those, it is very easy to write a synopsis and register it to get it copywrited. It costs a little bit of money, but if you truly have a great idea, it might be more than worth it.

fport's picture
fport from Canada is reading The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond January 7, 2013 - 3:20pm

In the world is the long slow hunch, that's the aggregation of trends and happenings and thinkings building slowly to the next things. Remember, we stand on the shoulders of giants, those who have come before. So any idea is not the idea, because those are ideas whose time has come. While a business trade secret steals the march on competitors and monopolists rake in the fruits of patent protections nothing is truly unique in an interconnected world. What wins is the fluke, dumb luck, timing, connections, location, proximity, drive, tenacity or someone else's bad luck. At the next level is the execution. With all the forgoing and genius you have the master. It's all a crapshoot. The cream rises to the top, or not.

alexgamen's picture
alexgamen from Argentina is reading 1Q84; The Way of Kings January 7, 2013 - 7:41pm

If you think you have one of those, it is very easy to write a synopsis and register it to get it copywrited.

Kind of the point I was aiming at (obliquely, I guess). I define an 'idea' as a sentence or two at best. Anything longer than that is a synopsis. So if you write a two-page 'synopsis' and post it somewhere, yeah, you might have it stolen but it's still highly unlikely anyone else would do something worthwhile with it.

<rant>

But maybe I read the original post wrong because I was thinking about novels. 'Idea stealing' could be a real fear for short-story writers, or comic-book writers, because in a short-form you depend on the idea itself much more than on the execution and character work. For example: if you read "Superman: Red Son" you would know the main idea is: Kal-El lands in Soviet Russia instead of Kansas, so he becomes a hero to the Soviets. It's a great twist, appropriate for a comic book. You could steal it and turn it into a similar quality product. Or, Bradbury's "There will come soft rains"... if you stole his idea about an automated house going through the motions after its occupants are gone, you could probably produce a short piece that's somewhat similar and could achieve a similar effect on the reader and the marketplace. 

If, instead, you tried to steal the idea behind Proust's "Á la recherche du temps perdu", and wrote a seven-part novel (or whatever) about a guy remembering his childhood after eating a biscuit, then the output will probably differ wildly from Proust's. Because an idea changes a lot in 500 pages or so.

You can see this effect clearly in writing workshops. You give everyone a writing prompt for a short story with an idea that's focused enough and there will be a lot of variations, but you will encounter a lot of common ground too. If you told them to write a novel based on that same short idea, the variations would be much wider.

</end rant>

 

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 7, 2013 - 8:54pm

"Show us what's unique, exciting, valuable, awesome, unexpected, about your project, and why it's comfortable, familiar and proven."

Says it all, right there. "Marketing"

------------------------

@Dwayne --- If it's not hard to imagine a that a writer would do all the legwork on their own idea, (and it's not hard, because they do it all the time,) then why do you think some would not lift stuff to make it easier? Plagiarism happens to writing which is already published; so why the hell wouldn't someone lift from something nobody has yet read? Your argument that a so-called "new idea" would not be tempting does not hold water, as evidenced by the tripe plagiarists have chosen to steal: they aren't good sentences, the writer was just being lazy. (Nevertheless, given the sheer numbers of writers working today, I'm sure the purely statistical odds of any one's idea being stolen are in fact low.)

-------------------------

I'm of the opinion that anybody who truly believes "it's all been done" should not write anything other than technical manuals.

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated January 8, 2013 - 7:57am

@alexgamen - I think you're mistaken here. If "Superman: Red Son" was written by say me for example I'd have set in with Gorbachev as the General Secretary (one I saw on TV growing up) and I'd have not given a close personal relationship with Superman. It would have been a story about him trying to figure out who he was during the fall of the U.S.S.R. You take out the dog of the There Will Come Soft Rains and it becomes a much more a sad cold tale, and much less a gross punch in the gut. The overlap would be there, but still very different stories.

@ J.Y. I'm not sure what to tell you don't understand plagiarism is a fairly rare event, and happens more to published works because they have (mostly) had professional editing and with even a small print run hundreds of people have seen it and hundreds of thousands have access if they look; compared with posting say here to a semi-private place you can take it down when you are done after a few dozen have seen it. On top of that, most of those are paid professionals. It is like putting up a lighting rod but not using a seat belt. Yes it is a risk, like everything in life. The real problem is not writing.

Just look at the stories on here.

Professional on Professional (some of these started as Amateur on Professional)

http://litreactor.com/news/update-qr-markham-plagiarist-speaks & http://litreactor.com/news/the-confessions-of-qr-markham (same event)

http://litreactor.com/news/lenore-hart-under-fire-for-plagiarism

http://litreactor.com/news/its-a-three-peat-naomi-ragen-is-deemed-a-plagiarist

http://litreactor.com/news/jay-z-accused-of-plagiarizing-parts-of-his-memoir

http://litreactor.com/news/blogger-vs-plagiarist-smackdown-video

http://litreactor.com/columns/unsanctioned-sequels-to-classic-novels-written-by-different-authors

Amateur on Professional

http://litreactor.com/columns/scandalous-is-50-shades-of-grey-better-than-you-think-it-is

Self

http://litreactor.com/news/repeating-yourself-again-journalist-in-trouble-for-self-plagiarizing

Varied

http://litreactor.com/columns/five-lame-excuses-for-plagiarism

Anyone on Amateur 

http://litreactor.com/news/is-nothing-sacred-self-published-erotica-section-of-amazon-rife-with-plagiarism

And that guy left full works up on shady websites, which I said was a bad idea. So yeah, don't do that. People want to take the time to develop their own ideas, not yours. I know you love it, and I know like your baby/dog/grandma is is special to you because it is yours. But it is closer to, "This is my idea, there are many like it, but this one is mine."

And I'm of the opinion anyone who doesn't get it has all be done shouldn't even be writing those manuals. 7 billion people alive just right now, who knows how many billions who've lived in the past. Billions, with a b. Your idea is not new. Get over it.

Jack Campbell Jr.'s picture
Jack Campbell Jr. from Lawrence, KS is reading American Rust by Phillipp Meyer January 8, 2013 - 9:16am

Regardless, you could never copyright an idea. You have to at least work it out into a synopsis. If it is a short story, you just have to write it.

Bradbury can't protect the idea of an automated house continuing after its occupants are gone. That isn't specific enough. Superman is a different thing entirely, because Superman is a registered trademark and that has a whole different set of issues, but there is nothing stopping other people from making similar stories, such as what if Captain America was developed by Nazi Germany.

I could sit down tomorrow and write a story about a mechanized world left behind. Back to the Future begins with a light-hearted scene of the same type of thing, with a totally different meaning to it. 9 involves a story of a mechanical world where humans no longer exist. I'm sure there have been others, but those are a couple off the top of my head.

Even in a work as short as "There Will Come Soft Rains" the execution is the most important thing. Bradbury creates action and drama entirely from setting. The idea itself is nothing special. But how he developed the theme and used the idea makes it of my my favorite short stories.

fport's picture
fport from Canada is reading The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond January 8, 2013 - 11:03am

Obersturmbannführer Uber, a body armoured specimen whose gear is the lance staff and krupp omnisteel shield who is the new super man for the front lines, the first of many superior warriors achieved with an enhanced diet, a cocktail of gene spliced rna viruses and forced learning is withdrawn from the now successful Russian front but wanders past a Konzentrationslager on his way back to Berlin, the sights disturb him but rationalization over conquered peoples and their place in the Reich prevails but then while taking a shortcut through a mountainous forest region on foot for exercise he meets an  deserter Einsatzkommando who has broken psychologically while working in a death camp. Uber is soon turned against his commanders and begins to fight against them.                 

alexgamen's picture
alexgamen from Argentina is reading 1Q84; The Way of Kings January 8, 2013 - 12:35pm

And with that last, awesome post by fport, I think I can't add anything else to the debate :P

But it seems the answers to the original question of "How can I protect my idea?" are basically:

 

  • You don't.
  • Barbed wire and secrecy

 

Frank Chapel's picture
Frank Chapel from California is reading Thomas Ligotti's works January 8, 2013 - 3:22pm

Heres some ideas: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back (thats most romantic dramas/comedies etc.); Mastermind badguy lets himself become captured by hero/es in order to hit them in their HQ and escape (Dark Knight, Avengers, Skyfall);

Your idea is only protected by the amount of specifics, detail, and originality in it. The more u work to flesh it out the more you own it. An original idea is extremely hard to come by, its very likely someone somewhere has the same concept, but maybe with a slight variation.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 8, 2013 - 7:50pm

^ yes, specificity is the point which Dwayne ignores.

And:

People want to take the time to develop their own ideas, not yours. I know you love it, and I know like your baby/dog/grandma is is special to you because it is yours. But it is closer to, "This is my idea, there are many like it, but this one is mine."

And I'm of the opinion anyone who doesn't get it has all be done shouldn't even be writing those manuals. 7 billion people alive just right now, who knows how many billions who've lived in the past. Billions, with a b. Your idea is not new. Get over it.

He writes as though he knows both what I think, and what everybody else thinks.

@Dwayne --- I'm not in this discussion because of an idea of mine which I don't want to share. Please don't instruct me on the finer points of your insipid generalizations. Please don't pretend I can't understand the difference between a billion and whatever you think I could have misunderstood you to have meant.

You don't know that it's all been done; you would have to know all that already is and was to know that. You have no idea what could be new, because you yourself have failed to imagine it. You don't know what it could be because someone else hasn't done it yet and shown it to you. You know only that you will not be the one to do it.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 8, 2013 - 7:54pm

fport: +∞

fport's picture
fport from Canada is reading The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond January 8, 2013 - 8:47pm

A much lesser number of people lived in the past when you refer to all the people alive now.

Remember the requested payment in grains of rice? Just double the number on the next square.

J.Y. ty. alexgamen. ty. I was wondering on how to get from Obersturmbannführer Uber to Captain America to close the loop. Do you think it would be better to have him develop the name himself or have the resistance name him due to the patterns on his shield? 

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 8, 2013 - 8:52pm

He should die without knowing the name of his legend, but not before kicking hithertofore unknown amounts of asses.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 8, 2013 - 8:54pm

[an old idea]

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated January 9, 2013 - 6:27am

@J.Y. - I could go into detail, but I'll just point out you aren't the first to get upset with someone who thinks it has all be done.

@fport - I've heard that before, but according to the Population Reference Bureau, the only people who I've seen do any kind of detailed logical analysis of that, say that about 108 billion people have lived. So no it seems unlikely, although I guess that can't exactly be known.

http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2011/distilled-demographics-how-many-ever-lived.aspx

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 9, 2013 - 12:43pm

Awww, I can't even be the first to get upset about something!

I don't believe that you could ever go into enough detail to make your claims realistic (unless you're really a theoretical physicist). But if you do not wish to continue talking about this, I am fine.

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated January 9, 2013 - 1:21pm

I feel like you are asking me to prove that water is wet or fire is hot. You don't have to visit every lake, stream, set, pond, and ocean to figure it out, or put your hand on ever stove to learn what flame does to flesh. Any idea I've ever looked into was based off someone else's work, I've never seen, heard, or other wise encountered anything I'd call a new idea. Humans only think in so many ways, and none of them are going to be new.

And even if it is the once ever new idea, so what? That doesn't make it good, important, or worth the time to protect when you could be writing. To be a writer you have to write, not be the person who protected their idea well. If you worry about what people with think (including that it is worth stealing) of your idea/writing, you don't stop making excuses and get it done. Which still leaves you with the same spot, where you are better off having your some of your work stolen then you are being over protective.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 9, 2013 - 1:36pm

Any idea I've ever looked into was based off someone else's work, I've never seen, heard, or other wise encountered anything I'd call a new idea.

This is either untrue, or you have (and always have had, even as a child,) very unusual criteria or means for distinguishing the new.

Which still leaves you with the same spot, where you are better off having your some of your work stolen then you are being over protective.

Fuck that. Those are not the two options.

fport's picture
fport from Canada is reading The World Until Yesterday - Jared Diamond January 9, 2013 - 6:12pm

 

@Dwayne, okay, so the lowest I could get the previous world pop to is here, everyone else agrees with your sources.

To estimate the number of people who have ever lived, we examined the average life span throughout human history in conjunction with world population levels. Until very recently life expectancy at birth hovered between 20 and 35 years, but in the past century it has risen to 67 years (it is highest in Monaco, at about 89 years, and lowest in Angola, where people live on average to be just 39 years old)

All this means that in the 200,000 years since Homo Sapiens took her first steps across the African plains, just 57 billion people have ever lived. Astonishingly that means over 12% of all the people ever born are walking the planet at this very moment. Or to put it another way: one in eight people who have ever been born are alive today.

http://blog.1000memories.com/75-number-of-people-who-have-ever-lived

Clarke wrote that there were 29 ghosts per human at 3.5 billion and the currently accepted figure is 15 ghosts behind each living being.

Good call, my bad.

 

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated January 9, 2013 - 6:16pm

As a child I didn't care if it was new, I was busy. But yeah, since I've thought about it not happened.

No, the options are make excuses or write.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 9, 2013 - 6:22pm

[My reply shall be constructed and delivered in a manner equivalent to that of its source-comment.]

Yes has.

Dwayne's picture
Dwayne from Cincinnati, Ohio (suburbs) is reading books that rotate to often to keep this updated January 9, 2013 - 6:41pm

Can you name an example of an original idea?

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 9, 2013 - 6:48pm

Probably not one which would meet your definition.

Brandon's picture
Brandon from KCMO is reading Made to Break January 9, 2013 - 7:37pm

You guys should just get it over with and ticklefight each other.

ReneeAPickup's picture
Class Facilitator
ReneeAPickup from Southern California is reading Wanderers by Chuck Wendig January 9, 2013 - 8:04pm

Brandon, as always, with the most logical answer for these LitReactor arguments.

OtisTheBulldog's picture
OtisTheBulldog from Somerville, MA is reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz January 9, 2013 - 8:15pm

Wait - is ticklefighting an original idea? What if they did it in a tub of extra thick mayonaise? Has that been done? Should I copyright it? 

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like January 9, 2013 - 8:34pm

I would lose. I am the most ticklish person I know. Only on certain parts of the stomach, though; but I'm an absolute pushover if you hit the spot.

So please don't poke me in the spot.

Or any spot.