Spent 3 hours rewriting a prompt that needed 4 words swapped

I was working on a sci-fi prompt about a colony ship losing gravity, but every draft I wrote felt flat and clunky. After three hours of tweaking descriptions and adding dialogue, I realized I just needed to change 'the ship shook' to 'the floor let go'. Anyone else burn a ton of time fixing the wrong part of a prompt first?

3 comments

3 Comments

finley_smith16d ago

The floor let go" - man, that's such a good fix. I did basically the same thing last week with a fantasy prompt. Kept rewriting this big paragraph about the character feeling sad, then realized I just needed to swap "she cried" for "she went quiet." Three hours gone for nothing. What was the original line you kept trying to save before you cut it?

averyc9415d ago

Wait, how long did you sit there trying to rework that whole paragraph before it hit you? I've been there so many times, it hurts. I spent a whole afternoon once writing this scene where a guy is trying to apologize to his dad, and I kept adding more dialogue and arguments and flashbacks. Finally I just cut everything and wrote "he set the phone down without saying goodbye." That one line did more work than all the other paragraphs combined. Sometimes you gotta stop digging and just plant the flag, you know? The original line I kept trying to save was something like "the air grew thick with unspoken words" and I was so proud of it, but it was just getting in the way.

cora81316d ago

Oh man, that's way too relatable lol. I spent like two hours last month trying to make this fantasy intro feel magical and epic. Kept adding more description about the enchanted forest and glowing flowers. Finally I just swapped "the air smelled sweet" for "the air tasted like honey and rust" and it clicked instantly. All that time fixing the wrong thing is brutal but hey, at least we got there in the end.