Daniel Aegan

Today demands I write something new, something fresh to me. I’m not stalled on my current WIP (Kai the Swordsman), but something is telling me to take a step back, even if it’s a small one.

I wrote a bunch yesterday. This morning, I deleted around a page of it. Why did I wake up this morning and decide that the last thing I wrote was a bit too much?

Because it was.

My scene was dragging out. It already had two chapters, and I had began a third. Granted, it’s a decent idea I’ll probably revisit later in the story, but it didn’t quite fit where I had it.

Take that for what it’s worth. Know when to delete stuff. Know when you’re being too verbose for your own good. “Kill your darlings”. Keep your prose from turning purple.

For those of you non-writers who follow me, I’m sorry for another post about writing. But it’s on my mind. Deleting something, a whole mini plot twist in this case, isn’t easy. It’s necessary, but not easy. Look at the story as a whole, though, like I did. If it’s forced, it drags. If it drags, your book will end up on the shelf, unfinished. If someone puts in the effort to pick up my book to begin with, then I owe them a story worth keeping till the end.

Maybe I’ll follow the urge and start something new. Maybe I’ll put Kai on a path I wasn’t intending him to walk. Maybe this feeling will pass and my mind will let me work on the last 15k words of my WIP without making me get moving on a second.

By the way: The world is a dark place and the light inside is fading. The end.

-Daniel Aegan
11/2/18