It’s almost a cliché that when people hear you write fiction, someone will inevitably suggest, “I have this great idea for a novel. I’ll tell it to you, your write the book, and we’ll split the money.”

I’ve never had anyone say exactly that to me, but occasionally someone will say they have a great idea and want to write a book. Someday they’ll get around to it.

Or they ask: Where do you get your ideas? They imply it’s some kind of special talent to find those components for a story.

There’s a lot to unpack from those assumptions. First one is that the idea is the most important part of the process. Here’s a hint: it’s not. Ideas are a dime a dozen. I can get four or five good ideas from the morning news. I already have more ideas floating around in my head than I’ll ever be able to use.

The real trick is sorting through those ideas, letting them play out, and seeing how they can develop.

My own theory about the genesis of stories is that they happen when at least a couple of ideas start rubbing up against each other to produce friction and conflict. It usually takes several good ideas to generate a novel’s worth of plot.

The second assumption is that writing even a good short story is easy. It’s not. Developing characters, plot, situation, background, integrating them, and finding the right words to express all those elements takes an enormous amount of mental energy.

Writing demands discipline as well, the determination to put your butt in the chair and keep your hands on the keyboard long enough to create. Even a short story takes many hours of work. I generally spend anywhere from three days to a week creating a first draft of most short stories, and then take at least a few more days of editing.

A novel can take up to a year of work. It’s true that I’m not the speediest of writers, but I take pride in giving the process the time it needs to produce the best possible work.

So… Ideas? They’re the easy part. The work is everything else it takes to create a story. And it’s hard.