On Jul 28, 2012, at 10:52 AM, Paddyjack <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ray, > > A weird idea struck me this morning and I thought you may have some > ideas about this. Let's say John has this great idea for a book but > can't even write an Happy Birthday card correctly.... can he sell the > idea to a publisher, or even directly to a writer so that it would be > written by someone else who knows how to do it? It seems to happen for > movies sometimes, and I was wondering if it happens also with books? > > Thanks, > > PJ > You're jamming a lot of stuff into one basket. First, ideas can't be copyrighted. Only the unique expression thereof, so whatever John might dream up, he'd have to be pretty convinced it was something special. OK, so let's say it's a really nifty concept. He could try to find a co-writer, but the fact is, without front money he's not going to find too many pros willing to listen. We need ideas like we need our taxes raised. There are books I want to write I'll never get to, because they'll always be the third or fourth choice of what to do next. If he found a writer, at that point it would be as if he wrote it himself, i.e. finding a publisher and all the rest of that. As for movies, you're probably seeing "Story by" followed by "Screenplay by" someone different. That's a different thing. In screenwriting there's a stage called the "story pitch." So let's say I have a pitch meeting for my movie idea, "Really Nifty Stuff," and they like the idea, but don't like my first draft screenplay. They might buy the idea and hire another writer to do it. So, in short, John would have to be able at least to write a pitch and have a story bible (as it's known in the biz). Really there are no "good" ideas or "bad" ideas in stories. Only good and bad executions of storytelling. Best, R.E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
