Serious question, has a writing prompt ever just stopped working for you halfway through?

Started a story about a detective in a flooded city last week. The setup was great, but the plot fell apart by page three. I just stared at the screen for an hour. What do you do when a prompt runs out of gas like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

emmas1913d ago

Actually think staring at the screen is part of the process. That flooded city story might just need you to push through the bad part to find the good idea again.

felix14714d ago

Serious question" feels like a stretch. It's just a story that didn't work out. Happens all the time. That flooded city idea probably just needed a simpler problem, like a missing cat instead of a huge conspiracy. When a prompt dies, I usually just close the file and go do something else. Most ideas aren't worth that hour of staring.

brooke52013d ago

Save the big ideas for when you have time to build them out. Start with something small you can finish in one sitting, like that missing cat story. A completed simple story always beats an abandoned epic.