"vivid idea" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to describe an idea or concept that is strong and clear in a person's mind. For example, "The author's vivid idea of hope inspired readers to keep going."
This gives, naturally, a much more vivid idea of what Schlesinger was really like than anything in Schlesinger's own journals.
But it has given me a more vivid idea of what makes life worth living, and defending.
The reconstruction, first made for a 1995 exhibition at the Pompidou, gives us a vivid idea of Mondrian's ideas about space and form.
The problem seems to be that he could not come up with a memorable melody, and this is the kind of music that depends upon some kind of vivid idea to have any effect.
In the scene where Stanley overhears Blanche condemning him as an animal with something sub-human about him, we get a sudden close-up of him and a vivid idea of the rancour the statement breeds.
"Most of my plays have been inspired by a single, vivid idea," he says, recalling that his 1999 play Cooking With Elvis "began with the image of a mute Elvis impersonator in a wheelchair.
Mr. Cohen, though, continued to be in demand, thanks to vivid ideas easily conveyed.
They were full of vivid ideas and feelings including an admirable lack of sentimentality to their own work.
Exquisite sensations of pleasure, an irresistible propensity to laughter; a rapid flow of vivid ideas... are the ordinary feelings produced by it.
First seen in 2011, Alice had proved a massive box-office hit for its kaleidoscope of vivid ideas, including a tap-dancing Mad Hatter, a 24-legged caterpillar and an unforgettable parody of The Sleeping Beauty's "Rose Adage", the greedy Queen grabbing a jam tart from each of her three cavaliers, scoffing them as she goes.
The answer is not to be found by postulating vivid ideas but rather by noting the general fact that not all people are as judicial and as critical as one might wish.
