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Writing Strategies
I'm at this point yet again, so I'm asking you, writers out there, what do you do?
You have this great prompt and this intriguing idea. You start writing and you're sure that it's going to be brilliant. You write and tweak the first chapters, plot like no one's ever plotted before. The characters become solid in your head and you find their voices. Things are starting to fall into place, and they're coming together. The plotting is done, the general arc is clear, the first 10,000 words are written, and you estimate that it's about a third of the story. You're proud of your little baby, and yourself, because you're awesome.
Then you take a deep breath, take a step back, and look at what you got. You get this sinking feeling that no one is going to read past the first paragraph. It's boring, pretentious, uncreative bullshit, and it's been done before. Truth be told, you think it sucks.
Have you been there? What do you do at this point?
Do you delete the whole thing and never think of it again?
Do you keep writing, telling yourself that you're too critical, thinking that you can rewrite once you have a draft?
Do you tweak and change until you're satisfied and then continue?
Do you go back to the plotting phase?
Do you procrastinate and post things to your journal instead of just sucking it up and keep writing?
You have this great prompt and this intriguing idea. You start writing and you're sure that it's going to be brilliant. You write and tweak the first chapters, plot like no one's ever plotted before. The characters become solid in your head and you find their voices. Things are starting to fall into place, and they're coming together. The plotting is done, the general arc is clear, the first 10,000 words are written, and you estimate that it's about a third of the story. You're proud of your little baby, and yourself, because you're awesome.
Then you take a deep breath, take a step back, and look at what you got. You get this sinking feeling that no one is going to read past the first paragraph. It's boring, pretentious, uncreative bullshit, and it's been done before. Truth be told, you think it sucks.
Have you been there? What do you do at this point?
Do you delete the whole thing and never think of it again?
Do you keep writing, telling yourself that you're too critical, thinking that you can rewrite once you have a draft?
Do you tweak and change until you're satisfied and then continue?
Do you go back to the plotting phase?
Do you procrastinate and post things to your journal instead of just sucking it up and keep writing?