So I’m working on a story tonight (yes, at the coffee shop; yes, I know I’m not fooling anyone) and getting pretty bummed about how it’s going. The writing feels forced and artificial, stilted sentence construction, not jocular enough. Sure, the scenario is rather downbeat, and it’s supposed to be an introspective piece, but it still just feels all wrong. The main character is talking about going to his new home in a new city and what he sees on the way there.
So all this is sucking and I keep telling myself that it’s just a shitty first draft and once I get a good hunk of it written I can go back and edit it into shape.
Then he finally gets there and meets another one of the characters and suddenly there’s, you know, dialogue and jocularity and stuff.
So yeah, all that earlier stuff? Needs to be edited right out of existence. Anything worthwhile in there can be filled in later, during an episode when something’s actually happening.
Sometimes I just need to be smacked upside the head, I guess.
Sometimes you have to pass the town dump to get to the playground. Keep working at it… Like you said, you can fill out the worthwhile stuff. Just think of it as character back-story.
Cheers!
John