A day in the life of a writer: trashing pages

I forgot to mention that I’ve been working on the same pages for several months. Not every day, just for my monthly assignments. I got them honed to bland acceptability, and realized yesterday that I will have to trash them all.

I was kinda proud of those pretty words and at least two of the characters. But as interesting as all that was, it went nowhere. Well, except to a tight, windowless, baffling corner. It just wasn’t working. I’ve been struggling to make my characters do something interesting, and one of them drove off, another went haring off after that one, and the last just sulked in her office.

There was some funny dialogue, but the story itself was like a face with no eyebrows or lashes. Or lips. No nose.

*sigh*

So I’m starting over from scratch with characters who have agendas, and already, before word one, I know the story will take off.

I’m sharing this because I know there may be other writers who are fighting a bland storyline. If that’s you, try working with Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. You’ll be relieved to discover that the problem is fixable.

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