jake_chen•3d agoTop Commenter

The Tuesday my whole writing group hated my prompt and it actually helped

I spent like 3 days crafting this elaborate prompt about a time traveler who accidentally erases his own birth but then paradoxes his way back. Thought it was genius. Brought it to my writing meetup at the library downtown last Tuesday and everybody just stared at me. One guy said it felt like homework. The woman next to him said she'd rather write about a dog that finds a lost key. I was ready to argue but then she showed me a 300 word story she wrote on the spot about that dog finding the key under a porch and it had me actually tearing up. That simple little idea had more heart in 5 minutes than my complicated mess had in days. I scrapped my whole prompt and wrote something about a kid finding a message in a bottle that same night. Has anyone else had a moment where a plot you thought was great just totally bombed with real people?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahpark3d agoOG Member

Learn to kill your darlings early and often. That complicated time paradox thing probably sounded cool in your head but it's too much work for a reader to care about. Simple emotions hit harder because people can actually feel them without doing homework. Now when I test a new idea I give myself ten minutes to write a rough version and if it doesn't make me feel something, I toss it.

tessa_hill863d ago

Oof, the ten minute rule is brutal but I bet it works. Killing darlings early is honestly the hardest part of writing for me too lol.