Thread by @straczynski

A (far too) long thread concerning ideas/stories, why people shouldn’t send them to professional writers, and why they need to either accept that stipulation or find other accounts to follow.

To speak from my experience: I’ve been interacting with fans online for almost thirty--

--years, since the days of 28.8 modems and BBSs. These have been daily conversations, not just when there’s something to promote. The jmsnews system has something like 88,000 messages I’ve posted over the years. Like @neilhimself, I put in hours every single day corresponding--

--with folks, time that could be used to create our own stories, movies, shows and the like. But we make that time because we are fans ourselves, and we want to give back, knowing how much it would have meant to us if some of the writers we followed were this freely accessible.--

Speaking for myself, the only thing I’ve asked in return is: don’t send me stories or story ideas because it not only puts me in legal jeopardy if I happen to be working on something similar now, it also precludes me from following cool ideas that might independently come up in--

--in the future and are even remotely similar. (So someone could suggest a B5 story and no, we can’t do that because there’s no B5, but the underlying situation behind that story could have applications far beyond that one show and put me in jeopardy on every show I ever --

--work on for the rest of my life. And I don’t care if you say, “well, we can just sign a release form, that’s simple.” No, what’s simple is to comply with my one and only stipulation for being online, and respect my boundaries. If you claim to respect me and my work, then--

respect my choices. The problem is that there are some people who consider their right to shove their work in front of someone more important, and more valid, than the other person’s desire not to be exposed to that. --

EVERY person has the right to say "I don't want to be touched by you" or "don't smoke around me" or "please respect my boundaries" when it comes to any part of their lives, personal, emotional, physical or creative. The problems come when the other person comes back with--

--"Well, why *can't* I do that? Why are you being such a tightass? Loosen up. Let me do what I want.” They make it about you being too strict rather than about their insistence that you let them do something to you that you don’t want done. --

--These are people who do not respect boundaries, believing that the importance of their wishes overrule yours. Neither I nor anyone else, in this regard or any other, needs to justify our boundaries to someone else. If someone doesn’t respect that, if they don’t want --

--their conversational options constrained in that way, then the “relationship” isn’t working and they should leave the situation they find so confining. The door’s over there. We’re not going to bend the rules that everyone else has no problem following just to make you happy.--

The rule about not sending me (or other writers) stories or story ideas is what allows this conversation to take place. If enough people refuse to respect that rule, the only other option is for me (or others) to withdraw. Then you can talk about your story ideas all you want--

--with the 28,000 other users who had been following this account and can no longer do so because of your behavior. I imagine the results would be quite colorful.
Finally, on the topic of giving/sending/selling ideas to professional writers…legal issues aside for the moment--

--we don’t want and don’t need them. Writers swim in a sea of ideas 24 hours a day. I have so many binders filled with premises and story ideas that if I never had another one I’d be set for my next five incarnations. Ideas are a dime a dozen. What matters is the execution--

--(rather than the assassination) of an idea. Give 10 writers the same idea and you’ll get back 12 vastly different stories. It’s also likely that your brilliant, wonderful idea is something that has already been thought of or done, or is in fact unworkable or without interest--

--to anyone outside yourself. You don’t know this because by your own admission you’re not a writer and have no desire to be a writer, so you don’t know how a story is developed. It’s like wandering into shop class for the first time and, not really knowing the process--

--hot-glued three boards to create a napkin holder and are terribly excited because you think no one has ever thought to do it before in just this way. And because writers have a gazillion ideas of their own, why should any of them say--

--“Yes, give me YOUR idea for which I’ll do all the work and have to deal with you, total stranger, for the glory of getting half what I'd normally get paid?” They wouldn’t, they won’t, and they don’t. For all the talk about “I want to sell my idea or give it away to a--

--professional writer…I’ve never seen it happen. Ever. You can argue endlessly why you think it *should* happen, but that doesn’t change the fact that it Simply Doesn’t Happen. If you have story ideas, great, go and write them yourself. If they're not--

--compelling enough to move you to write them, why would you think they’d be compelling to a stranger? If you build fanfic on the creations of another writer don’t expect them to leap to see *your* version of *their* story because it imperils them for the rest of their careers--

--And as with any part of life, understand that no means no, and it’s extremely bad form…psychopathic, even…to attack or keep coming at that person over and over to insist that your right to expose your material is more important than their right to be left alone. It will--

--endear you to no one, especially the person you are talking to and whose attention you are allegedly trying to win.

Are we finally, *finally* clear on all this?