Put space between you and your writing. The only way to truly know if you have something is to step back, forget it as well as you can, and come back to it with fresh eyes. Are you getting excited for the next chapter? Who cares if the writing is still rough, are you enjoying it?

Either answer is okay. If you are enjoying it, then you know you’re on to something. It may not be great yet, but it can get there. It has good bones as some might say. Not enjoying it? Should you scrap the whole thing? Maybe? Or maybe you just need to think on it more. Rewrite a couple of scenes, add something to a character or a plot point, and play around.

That’s the beautiful thing about writing. Nothing is permanent until it’s published. You are bound by nothing but language, and even there, the reigns are pretty loose. Though I hate the sacred cow phrase, there is some truth to it. Nothing in your writing should be sacred except for what people have paid for, and even then, feel free to leave yourself a backdoor.

Let’s play with an example for no real reason:

You said that Dan was afraid of flying in the last book, but now you need him to get across the country fast. Not the best example because that conflict sounds fun to deal with, but if you had to change it, maybe he never was afraid of flying, maybe that was a lie he told other characters and the reader to get out of something in the first book and now here you are revealing some things about your character. Not only is he not actually afraid of lying, but he doesn’t have a problem lying to people to get out of something. Maybe lying isn’t really a part of who your character is though. Maybe there was some other fear. Something he was embarrassed to admit that prevented him from flying. Maybe there is a confrontation later about it

Don’t feel trapped by your past decisions. Writing is all about creating traps for yourself and then finding ways to fool the audience. In this way, a writer is better than a magician. We build traps without knowing how we are going to make them work when we have to escape them. Granted, we have the benefit of time, and usually no audience is watching us work.

All this is to say your writing isn’t what’s special. It’s how you try and fit your writing together that is. In a living project, every word is on the chopping block until it’s published somewhere. Want to change something? Do it. Try it. Play. Writing is about play, and it’s far too easy to forget that.

Quote of the Moment:

“Fear is a survival instinct; fear in its way is a comfort for it means that somewhere hope is alive.”

― Theodore Sturgeon, More Than Human

Current Reads:

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson