Who is Afraid to Talk About Their Ideas?

[ToxicRamen]

I always come up with ideas for my projects and I would love to talk about them to other artists but I'm always reluctant to do so because I'm afraid that someone else online could easily take my ideas and use it themselves and I wouldn't be able to use them without someone accusing me of stealing their ideas. Is anyone else afraid to talk about their ideas to others?

[TomSawyer]

Well to a certain degree
I don't tell the full story, just enough for each page

Nothing has happened so far
I'm putting some trust that they aren't going to just take my ideas without permission

Just for clarification
My situation involved me working with artist

[Michelle]

No. Frankly most ideas aren't worth blatantly stealing, and I don't think this actually happen outside of very amateur art circles.

The only reason I would not talk in depth about my story is to avoid spoilers. If you can't talk about your story and ideas to others, you'll find it very hard to get anyone to care about it.

[shazzbaa]

I was very afraid of people stealing my ideas when I was a lot younger! Now I don't really believe "stealing ideas" like that is a big deal.

Have you ever tried to describe a story quickly and make it not sound cliche? It's actually really really hard! It's not just the idea that makes stories good, but what you do with it, and how you tell the story.

If I talked about an idea for a comic on here, and you stole that idea and released a series based on that idea, that doesn't actually hurt me much. I mean, it's possible to do the same idea fifteen different ways, and you would still have to do all the hard work and come up with the actual story of it yourself... so your series would look very different from the series I'm planning. The tone of the series would be different, the story would turn out differently, the characters would be different. Ultimately, whenever my series came out, people might ask "did you get the idea from @msierra185's series?" and I would just say "nah, I guess great minds think alike!" and that would be that.

[nessiefynn]

Well the thing is that an idea is only that: an idea. Even if someone took your idea and made a hit comic seies from it you might not even know it was taken from your idea in the first place. Plenty of stories are based off of the same or similar ideas, like there are plenty of stories about "guy goes to fantasy land to defeat evil wizard" or "girl in high school tries to get the handsome guy to fall in love with her." When you condense a story down to just an idea, there's a million different ways it can be made, so you could never even notice if someone was inspired by your idea, because they would use the idea very differently than you wooed.

[indagold]

I only give a few sentences of what I have since anything longer is a mouthful. I tend to let my work speak for itself.

[niinasalmelin]

I was never that afraid of people stealing them. More like they would think my ideas are just stupid and not worth telling-

[mariusthered]

I had this problem for many years it's one reason i never sent scripts out to agents I never trusted anyone, however as time goes by and you get older you learn that fear can become your biggest set back and if you let it you can prevent yourself from doing anything.

it is not all of the idea that counts your comic will come together in many parts not just the story idea but the style and the writing the layout and artwork all make the whole.

there is more than one comic about a city or a school but it's the characters in my comics that make the comics mine and I know the characteristics of each of my people.

[AnnaLandin]

I'm not really afraid that, I guess?

I rarely share my story-ideas in detail, but that's less out of fear of theft, and more because I don't want to spoil the events of the story, in case I ever get around to telling it.

Also, a story changes a lot from initial idea to finished story - by the time I start posting pages, it might be nearly unrecogniseable from that first spark of an idea, so it's not like things are immutable and permanent either. And like Shazzbaa said, there are more ways to tell a story than just one. There are as many ways as there are storytellers.

Just think about it: "young hero must leave the comforts of home to go on an adventure and defeat evil" could describe an infinite number of existing stories, but not one of them is identical to another. Lord of the Rings is not the same as The Belgariad, but they can both fit into that single sentence description.

[jessicasurline]

I was never really afraid of anyone stealing my ideas. Then again, I never really discussed them online before going into production. I have always had a hard time sharing my ideas with people around me. I am more afraid that my ideas are laughable or poorly explained and sound like a mess. Thankfully I have had 2 very key people in my life to help bounce ideas off of without fear of ridicule. They are my high school best friend (who loved acting and theater) and my husband. They gave me good constructive feedback and even helped push the ideas into something better!

[MissMagicGirl]

I am exactly like you. I am very careful with talking about my ideas. Even with friends which is silly really. But I can't help it! XD

[Aspie_Gamer]

Unless you spoil things that are supposed to be a surprise for the readers, I don't think that one should be afraid to talk about their ideas for their comic.