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Sat down to write one scene and got stuck on my character's job for 3 days
Trying to write a short story about a guy who fixes up old houses, and I gave him a specific job at a specific address. That was my mistake. I spent 3 full evenings trying to figure out what permits he'd need, what tools he'd actually have on site, and whether a crew of two could really strip a whole roof in one day. I went down a rabbit hole on crane rental prices for a project that does not exist. Eventually I just made up a made up county and skipped the whole part. Now the prompt I was working from feels like it wrote me instead of the other way around. How do you all handle it when a prompt drags you into details that your story does not even need?
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mark_thomas1d ago
A buddy of mine ran into the exact same thing with a story about a lady who ran a food truck. He spent two weeks reading up on health code rules in three different states and never wrote a single page of the actual story. What finally got him out of it was giving himself a rule, if the detail does not change how the character feels or what happens next, it does not go in the draft. He also started writing the made up version first and only looking stuff up later if a reader would truly notice. Funny thing is, most readers will not know or care what permit a guy needs to strip a roof. Your gut was right when you skipped it. The prompt works for you, not the other way around, and you can always go back and add real details once the story stands on its own.
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