Day 106

[adonnchaid]

I've been working on a stupid little story that was supposed to be just a bit of smut, and, as these things do, it grew plot and now requires serious rewriting. My problem? I've been so busy/distracted/away from writing lately that I think I've forgotten what my "voice" is. I read what I wrote and it's just ... wrong. Dull. Bad. Then I needed to know if I ever gave a real description of one of the OCs who appears from another story, and went to skim over it, and I think reading that old piece may have helped me find that voice again. Anybody else ever have that problem?

Comments

[van]

I've had this same problem countless times. I've tried leaving myself notes, or an outline, but I've discovered what seems to work best are attaching emotions to the notes. For me, emotions define the voice of individual characters, and sometimes the story. So I'll drop in 'X is scared here because of Y' or 'Y is angry because he thinks this but he's wrong, and won't find out until [scene 12]'. Music works very well for me, also, so sometimes I link to an evocative playlist or insert youtube links into an outline.

Even with all of that, sometimes I've left the story shelved too long and lose the desire to complete it. That drives me nuts.