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Spent 6 hours on a writing prompt because I overthought the "rules"
So I sat down to write a prompt about a lighthouse keeper finding a message in a bottle, and I got stuck on whether the keeper should be retired or active. Then I spent 45 minutes second-guessing the time period. By the time I finished, I had scrapped 3 full drafts and the original idea barely survived. It took me 6 hours total for what should have been a 20 minute brainstorm. Has anyone else ever paralyzed themselves over tiny prompt details that don't even matter?
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dianaanderson19d ago
The lighthouse keeper being active or retired actually changes how they'd react to the bottle, but I get why you went down that rabbit hole. @taylor12 maybe missed the point because once you start overthinking, it's hard to stop, like when I spent 40 minutes deciding if my character should wear a blue or green jacket for a scene that took 2 sentences. You probably ended up with a better idea anyway since you had to really commit to the details that survived.
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45 minutes on the time period... that's honestly impressive. I once spent a full hour trying to decide if a character would say "okay" or "alright" in a single line of dialogue. By the time I was done I'd written the whole conversation three different ways just to test which one fit. The funny thing is the scene didn't even make the final cut. So yeah, the lighthouse keeper could've been a retired astronaut with a pet parrot and it probably would've worked as long as you wrote it well.
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