Deploy the Backburners

Sometimes we have ideas that we just can’t stop to think about right now.  So we set them aside, to some dark corner of our minds, where they continue to grow.  I believe the idiom is “putting it on the back burner.” 

I have a fairly large back burner.  But this may not be unusual – for all I know, every one does.  As a writer, it is useful to look back there occasionally and see what’s cooking.

I’ve had a rant in my head for years asking why anyone would want to grow up in a nation that appears to value youth over age.  And another about how a global communications network will not create a world of peace and understanding and may, in fact, have the opposite impact.

One day, years ago, I’m writing this play and have a scene where I need conversation for an awkward dinner date between a man who needs to grow up a little and a woman who is a bit of a techie.  Out come the rants and the scene practically writes itself.  And the characters have something interesting and thoughtful to say.

After all, it’s stuff I thought about for years.

Of course, it doesn’t always work out that well.  Here’s a counter example:  I’ve had this idea for a play in which the characters trap a vampire in the basement, not realizing just how cruel and dangerous a creature they’ve cornered.  And I had this great speech, in which the vampire justifies her existence by claiming to be a living historical memory.  Great speech, with mythological references, poetic meter, and layers of metaphor.

When I finally get around to writing the play, however, the speech doesn’t fit.  It sounds too different from everything else in the play.  It sticks out, it spoils the rhythm, it looks like the author’s favorite pet doing an unnecessary cameo appearance.

So I had to cut it.  Had the damn thing for years, and it ends up on the cutting room floor.  So it goes.

It’s commonly held that works of art are expressions of the artist’s ideas and creativity.  But sometimes, for the end result to be a quality product, we don’t get to say everything we want to.