So I have recently resurfaced a story that I started goodness knows when. I LOVE what I have written so far but there is one problem. I usually write a little excerpt at the bottom of my story pages to give myself an idea of what I was thinking when I wrote the previous amount. Unfortunately I did not do it this time I am so scared to start back up and butcher it, does anyone have any suggestions to get the writing 'juices' going again? It has been well over a month since I wrote, I got stuck in a book series, so I am a little out of practice. Would it help to do a writing prompt maybe? Any suggestions are welcomed and thanks so much!
Why do you think you would butcher it? If you just read through what you wrote, see what fresh ideas you get, and pick it up from there? Writing prompts can be helpful, so definitely give them a try. Or if you an idea for another project or specific scenes, write them. No writing ever goes to waste. If anything, it's good practice.
I'm doing this with a story. There was a month break inbetween scenes. I had a character on a ledge and had to get him off the ledge. I reread what I had written to get back into the frame of mind of the characters, then I started writing. I wasn't pleased at first but I kept going over it until it sounded right. The best thing I did was to keep thinking about what the characters want and to allow your days events to help absorb into something that might be useful to the story.
You are the writer and the creator. The story lives in your mind. It is not something that exists independently of your imagination that can be misinterpreted and "butchered". Once you have re-read what you have written, then however you choose to continue is the right way. It may not be what you had initially imagined, but it is what you imagine now. Trying to second guess your former self is futile.
Yeah - just write the darn thing. It's not going to be the same story it used to be anyway, because you've had time to mature as a person and are going to approach it differently - even if it hasn't been that long. I'm working on something now that I first conceptualized about ten years ago, did some writing on in college, then put down for about eight years. Same characters, same plot, but definitely not the same story I set out to write - it's darker, focused on a different piece of the action, more character-driven rather than event driven, the characters have aged up a bit, and it has a ton of profanity where there used to be none at all. That's mostly because I'm 28 and see the world a lot differently than I did at 20 - I don't want to write the story the same way I originally did, and wouldn't be able to if I tried because I'm coming from a fundamentally different place as a writer.
If you start out writing expecting it to be perfect, you'll be in for a lot of disappointment. If you start out knowing that it won't be perfect, that it may go in a totally different direction, that you may not know for sure what's gonna happen next, but also that you're still allowed to change anything you need to during the process, then you'll free yourself from a lot of anxiety and give yourself some room to work. I always tell myself nothing is set in stone. I can always go back and tweak something that doesn't work for me. If you don't write anything, then you don't have anything to go back and fix. Nothing to learn from. Nothing to look back and discover, "Hey, that's actually pretty good!" You might be surprised at what your mind can come up with.
