Writing to get there

Every line is precious in that every line is there to bridge to the next one, and the next one, until the reader reaches the end, hopefully satisfied.
You don’t just skip out on making a sturdy step because, “Oh, they’ll get to the end eventually.” No, you must also think of the journey.

Your structure must be sound if you wish to weigh anything of worth upon it.

When I say every line is precious, I don’t mean that every sentence must pull Shakespeare to tears, I mean that every line is as important as the last in keeping your audience’s attention.

A reader will skip a boring sentence, or one that’s confusing. If you don’t put in the effort of making a good sentence, good transitions, in making even the boring bits bearable, you run the risk of losing your readers.


Al that said, I must reiterate that my main focus in writing is short stories and poetry, where this is 100000% true, and so my mentality for that may have ingrained itself even when I write longer works. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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I’m late to the thread but I hope my contribution helps some of you.

Instead of thinking of the destination plot point as the goal, consider the journey getting there to be your goal. The journey or story arc is a lot of fun to devise, plot and plan out when you think of it as your goal:

Make the journey the thing that the MC/reader remembers. If you do this, you will have a complete arc that remains in the reader’s mind for a while. Point A and point B should not be your goal of writing but the story connecting the two together should be.

In Tin star, the journey from San Fransico (point A) to the town (point B) is what makes the story memorable in the beginning. Did you follow the train tracks? Did you stop before the storm struck? What happened at the watering hole?

I found if I approach my writing in this way, I have more success.

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I get that ALL the time. But you know what? When I do, I write those scenes. Right then. I don’t put it off, I don’t focus on the bad, I just write them. If they depend on something specific to occur, I might start with writing a few sentences on what is needed to get there. In my Fallen Hero 2 folder I have tons of scenes from various parts of the book, the cool scenes, the random scenes, snippets of dialog I came up with in the car and so on. I am not yet past chapter one (soon) but I have so much written on the book already. If I had felt the need to finish chapter 1 first, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.

Don’t wait. Do the cool stuff. You’re gonna have to rewrite the start once you get to the cool stuff anyway, because you will find out new things, so you need to go back and change things anyway.

And you know what? A lot of the time it turns out that the slog at the start might not need to be as long as you think. Most stories are better served by starting later.

tldr: Write the cool things first, otherwise you might never finish anything at all.

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I’m kinda the same as @malinryden, writing the cool stuff because it gives you a chance to rewrite or edit again later anyway when you finally get to that scene!

I heard someone call those scenes ‘candybar scenes’ once :smiley: Those moment in stories that the readers and writer enjoy so much.

But the build up to eating a candybar helps give you the satisfaction of eating it—slowly peeling off the wrapper and knowing what’s inside is going to be sooo worth the wait. Well, I try and think of that in the sense of writing. All the build up stuff can be just as exciting because you know once you get to that sweet scene it’s gonna be even better!

…And now I’m craving some chocolate, lol.

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I mean, focus on the important things rather than making every single sentence catchy.

Sometimes, something as mundane as opening door don’t need to be detailed. You can summarize that action as “Bob enters the giant room/hall.” Skip the boring part, focus on the fun part. Or else, the reader will get a “reading fatigue.”

Of course, if you want to introduce readers to a character’s personality, something like “kicking the door down” works.

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happen to me all the time . See , when I decided to do this long serie…promising a chapter per day (ridiculous and insane) , I found out two thing :

1- How limited my vocabulary was .
2- writing simple scene was a pain in the butt .

When I hit that wall , I re-read what I wrote . Refresh my mind to where I was going with that scene . If the wall persist , then I take a break and listen to music (since that’s pretty much what inspire the most , I get ideas popping just listening to music) .

But yeah , pretty much this . Forcing it , usually for me at least…mean I end up unhappy with how I wrote it .

So backing away , nerd a little doing some research , listen to music…until I can make it work or get something better .

I’ve written for my own entertainment for years. Now that I’m trying my hand writing for other peoples interest, I’m finding quite the opposite from what most of you are describing. Not saying it doesn’t happen, more so that it’s a game for me.

I hit a road block, but it often works out best when I completely switch gears. Writing a scene in a dark, damp basement? Hit a brick wall? Switch to another point in the story and allow yourself to focus on the general plot points there. Or even go so far as to switch to another story you have in the works.

I’ve learnt that if it’s a pain to write, it’s a pain to read most of the time. (I love the complicated twists that REQUIRE hard thought, but they are a ***** to write sometimes)

The most tedious part for me is the dialog flow… John says “Hi.” Jill replies “Hi.”
I usually overcome this by the use of embellishment.
@EclecticEccentric I know you’ve received a lot of tips already but I’d still like to throw mine out there.

I glaze over the door openings ect unless I intend to build suspense or have some actual reason to break it down that much for the reader.

ie "HE turned the knob as quietly as possible, slowly driving the door forward to avoid the telltale creak. After slipping into the room, he heaves the door closed resulting in a climactic boom. I could see using that to describe the entrance of a spouse into a bedroom to catch their partner in the act. "

While it may not be that good and definitely not for everyone, I actually enjoy painting a picture with words like that. If I hit a wall, I go “paint” somewhere else or maybe on a different story all together.

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