What To Do With That Dead End Story

We have all had that story or project that simply goes no where. At some point in time (for me, it is always in the middle of the night) the idea sounded fantastic. This was going to be the best thing every. But then, with all of that enthusiasm, you sit at the computer and realize it is the biggest piece of "you know what" ever." Maybe it is a story and you get half of the way through it and realize it. Now what?

Just save it. Put it in a file or a memory stick of "story starts." I know this sounds silly, but a lot of those stupid ideas turn into something pretty dang amazing later. The issue might not be so much that the story idea is bad, but maybe the timing with you and your brain is not working. 

This might also be a case of the story not really being fully worked out at that moment. Maybe it simply takes time to gel, or maybe the plans need to be figured out a bit more. 

As I said, there are a ton of ideas that originally sounded stupid that turned into something pretty amazing. Think about the following:

• Some business owner thought it would be a great idea to take those old "Kodak Booths" and start serving really good coffee in it. I mean really, who would pull up to one of these things and buy a $5.00 cup of coffee when it's cheaper to go to McDonald's and get one there?
• Here in the Pacific Northwest, during one summer, some barista in one of those [stupid] small, drive through coffee places was complaining about the heat and said out-loud how much easier it would be to serve coffee if she could just wear her bikini instead of these other clothes. That company in their first month of allowing this doubled their sales.
• How about a couple of guys who were computer geeks and college drop outs, complaining one day about how it was a shame for people like them to have to go to a college lab to work on their computer projects. Steve said, "I don't know Bill, we have all of these spare parts in our garage, why don't we build our own?" That sounds sort of stupid but why not play around with it... Do you want an Apple Steve?"

The deal is this. For some reason, your brain needed to get those ideas out on paper. It might not be the right time or place. Maybe the project is never going to work. But, think about the fact that later, that idea might be the story idea that gets you somewhere.