I have written a story where every other chapter I never intend to use in the final product. My thoughts are that I need secondary character's POV, but the story doesn't need it. This helps me make the secondary characters feel more real and not so two dimensional. Have you ever written backstories, prologues, chunks of stories you never use, or maybe just reference?
I've written a lot of words I eventually edited out, but don't bother with backstories, etc., that never make it into the story at all.
I've experimented with writing a kind of scenario where I, without really care for the quality of the writing, just jot down the events of the story and thoughts around it. Really, it's messy, and I don't really read it back because it reads back horribly. It's just to get my mind going so it doesn't fall into the trap of "Blank-Screen Staring". What I gain from it is a rough idea for the story in my head. But even the first time , much of the story diverged away from it anyway quite a bit. So it literally is just brainstorming on paper. And it does help, it allowed me to write a whole book in just a month in conjunction with the snowflake method. I've never written this fast in my entire life. As for novel drafts, I reviewed some of my old stuff today and I couldn't resist the urge to rewrite them completely. They were terrible. Some drafts just need to be crumbled up and tossed away either into the physical or digital trash can. For my first novel, a lot if went to the trash, and a lot of it was re-written. As a result, some chunks of the story were indeed thrown away, particularly what wasn't needed. Components of the story, like backstories, I do them when its appropriate and I almost never throw them away. But I probably will find myself in that position someday.
I do it all the time, but I wouldn't call it 'writing I never use'. I use it to help find characterization or backstory or to find a character's voice or a setting. Otherwise you're doing that in the early parts of the story. As I say sometimes, I write about a story quite a bit before I write the story.
Accounts of background, yes. Like, timelines and descriptions of events or explanations of a character's motivation for my own understanding. But not an actual scene, nicely written, proper readable text, that I don't intend to use.
Yeah I’ve been doing this too, I find that it helps declutter your mind for writing, you don’t have to use what you write, but it does help shine a light on something you can use now or later
