And you would be surprised how many writers who may be good technically (story structure, grammar, good ear for dialogue, etc.) have zero originality or ability to come up with plots and ideas that are not hackeneyed or cliched, and how many people who have ideas lack the technical skills and basic grasp of story structure to turn the idea into a story or to write a coherent comprehensible sentence. When I was starting out writing inthe rgp field, I had an editor take me aside on the con floor and tell me basically ideas are worthless. The have no value. Look at this floor. Just about everyone one of them is full of ideas for stories and games. So much so, they are willing to give them away for free if you give them 2 minutes to listen to them. It's all worthless. I can't sell ideas. I sell finished products so I need writers who can produce competent manuscripts who can execute ideas, whether their own or someone else's. Without that manuscript, we have no story, no product and no revenue. Don't come to me with ideas, come to me with manuscripts. A lot of people have ideas and want to have written, very few have what it takes to write or are willing to put the time and effort in to write and write well. Ideas are easy. Writing is hard. You need to decide if you want to be a writer or just another dude with ideas wandering around a con floor..then I showed him the textbook on writing or incoming college freshman I had done and a copy of the 75K word manuscript I had done for another publisher and he gave me an assignment....

-M