#cut away his siblings and auren becomes much more important and it's relevant to his arc rather than an easter-egg add-on | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bookshelf-in-progress · 2 months

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No matter how many times it happens, I'm always shocked by how reliably all my problems with any given story are solved by making it shorter. If I go into a story with the idea that it'll be long, that I should use as much detail as I want to craft a full-length and fully-fleshed-out story instead of a short one, it always turns into this rambling, meandering, soulless thing that's no fun to read, and I get tangled up in so many flimsy, sprawling layers of character and worldbuilding that the plot becomes unworkable.

The minute I tell myself, "Let's make this as short as possible," the problems fall away, I find the heart of the story again, the pacing is brisk, scenes get multiple purposes, the world feels deeper because I'm implying things that spark the reader's imagination rather than trying to put every threadbare, boring detail on the page. Every time. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

#adventures in writing #yes this is about the arateph rapunzel retelling #the drafts of that one are *so* bad #thin and rambling with no plot progression #but then writing that rubber duck outline made everything fall into place #for instance: the drafts included subplots about zemma struggling with wanting to connect with her family while also doing her work #there were entire scenes just to introduce her mother #her family was going to get a whole subplot #camreth had a family full of brothers he mourned #and then writing the rubber duck explanation i realized that *none of that mattered* to the story i wanted to tell #cut away her family and i don't have to worry about how they could be harmed by her decision to marry a fugitive #and i can focus on her relationship with camreth rather than this tangled web that includes her mentor and her family #cut away his siblings and auren becomes much more important and it's relevant to his arc rather than an easter-egg add-on #i had struggled with the double point of view when i was given full rein #putting in lots of filler scenes because i feel like i need to give a full picture of both their lives #the 'keep it short!' mindset makes the two povs easy #just pick the scenes that are directly relevant to the plot then choose which pov is best for it #it's absolutely astounding but also horrifying because i've had this story for years #and this has worked with other stories before #i should have figured this out long before now

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