Ideas by Jeff Abbott:

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Ideas pay off when you really grab a reader.

This is the first and primary litmus test I use when I'm evaluating an idea-does this idea have the power to keep a reader turning pages?

 I find my relationships with ideas take the following course:

1. Think of good idea. Often feels like being struck by lightning. Nice warm glow permeates body. (Thinking of bad idea takes about ten seconds, and is the mental equivalent of wadding up a piece of paper and tossing it into the garbage.)
   
   
2. Madly embrace idea as the best one I have ever had. Let the obsessing over idea begin. Wife exhibits saintly patience as I continually ponder various aspects and execution of idea.
   
   
3. Dance around with the idea, gathering related ideas that can deepen the story, do initial research, and then start writing.
   
   
4. Start to worry that I am not doing justice to the idea (usually when you get to the middle of the book. I describe middles of books as where ideas, badly executed, stumble and die. Think of a book you didn't care for, and it's often the middle that seems wanting.) Keep plugging away, hope that I'm doing right by the idea, do my best to keep it fresh and interesting, remind myself I've done written books before and try not to fall into the paralyzing trap of eternal second-guessing.
   
   
5. Finish the book with a last bit of confidence that I did the best I could, and hope that readers will enjoy my take on the idea. This reader did, in one of the kindest e-mails I have ever gotten:

I am 18 years old. I live in England.

I just wanted to tell you that myself I don't read anything besides the newspaper, I was last night on a night shift on a oil refinery where I did a 12 hour shift, we had no work so I sat in a cabin with no one to talk to and nothing to do, I then saw the book ' Panic ' on the table in front of me,

I picked it up and just read the first page and I was hooked and couldn't put it down, now someone like me who doesn't read well I felt strange because I'm not into reading but this book took me into another world and the time passed by so fast and I would just like to thank you a lot for that, I am going to buy your books and take them to work with me :) thanks again

Seriously, for me, it doesn't get nicer than this young man's letter. To capture a reader's attention thoroughly is a great compliment; to engage a person who doesn't normally read fiction as an entertainment is humbling and inspiring, at least for me.

This is what it boils down to, whether or not we shape those original ideas into a good story that grabs both head and heart of a reader.

That's all writing is.

Thanks for listening this week, I hope you enjoy Collision, or whatever your summer reading might be.

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