House of Play Dough
Imagine this:
You just built a house, and you can’t wait to add the finishing touches. Most exciting will be the paint job. You meticulously pick out colors that match your personality and get to work. As you start, a friend points out that the house looks a little lopsided, but you assure them that it will all be okay once you’ve painted.
For some reason, though, things don’t get better as you paint. In fact, you notice more and more that there are crooked walls, soft spots, and weird lumps everywhere. All the paint does is change the color.
You see, this is a house built of play dough, and the foundation isn’t straight. All the paint in the world won’t fix it—you’ll have to squish up the dough and start again.
What does it mean to have a poor foundation in the “play dough house” of your writing? It’s a metaphor I first mentioned in my Revision Cheat Sheets: a blog series that started here and has been expanded to include action steps in my Expanded Revision Cheat Sheets, a free download for newsletter subscribers. Today I want to dig a little deeper into why it’s not a scary thing to squish and reshape your story—and what the biggest sign is that it’s time to do so.
Writer’s block: the biggest warning sign
Nearly everyone who calls themselves a writer, along with many people who don’t, has experienced writer’s block: that frustrating inability to write that sometimes feels like uninspired apathy and other times feels like a brick wall you can’t even see over, let alone move past.
There are a lot of theories about what causes it—lack of confidence, lack of sleep, lack of ideas, lack of discipline—but one of the ones that stands out to me the most is one I heard at a writing class taught by Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game and other science fiction and fantasy books for adults and teens.
The idea is simple: you have writer’s block because something is wrong with the story thus far, whether it’s an unbelievable plot point or an undeveloped, uninteresting element. This quote from Card on Goodreads more or less summarizes what I heard from him in person:
“Writer’s block is my unconscious mind telling me that something I’ve just written is either unbelievable or unimportant to me, and I solve it by going back and reinventing some part of what I’ve already written so that when I write it again, it is believable and interesting to me. Then I can go on. Writer’s block is never solved by forcing oneself to ‘write through it,’ because you haven’t solved the problem that caused your unconscious mind to rebel against the story, so it still won’t work—for you or for the reader.”
If you find yourself running into writer’s block, it could be as simple as a single scene starting to go the wrong direction and needing correcting, and there are plenty of resources to help you get through that. However, it could also be that something foundational to your story just doesn’t line up. This is why writer’s block is the biggest sign that it might be time to reshape things.
If at first you don’t succeed…
One of the stories I most want to write for myself has needed a lot of squishing and reshaping. I started the project as a short story, intending to show only the moment my protagonist had to make a difficult decision. The thing is, the more time I spent with her and another character, the more I saw a longer journey unfolding for the two of them that I wanted to explore.
So I continued the story into a novel.
That novel started out great but quickly fizzled after 10-15k words as I realized I wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen next. True, I’d introduced some interesting concepts into the story, but so what? It wasn’t clear why they were there or how they’d actually help the characters. I’d also introduced conflict, but there was zero motivation behind it. It was an arbitrary situation that felt caricatured and unreal, and I didn’t know why it was happening or what would fix it.
I set the story aside, and later I was able to come back and revise what the story’s tension would be. I kept writing, and I got a little farther. Then I ran into another roadblock—I hadn’t thought out where my “fix” would take me, and there were still countless unanswered questions plus the sense that something still wasn’t quite right. So I tried again.
Every year or so, I pull out that story, examine my outline, and take notes on what does or doesn’t ring true. It’s a slow process for a story I care so much about, but it’s letting me find the truest version of my novel for when I finally write the book, and I have the chance to hone my craft on other stories in the meantime.
My story is definitely a house built of play dough. The foundation has been squished and reformed several times, but each time it comes out a little sturdier, a little more sure.
Don’t be afraid to squish your story.
Have you hit a wall in your novel, unsure where to go next? Have you finished a draft but know there’s something not quite right yet? Do you suspect you might need to squish up your play dough house and reform it into something more stable?
It can be overwhelming at first to face a major rewrite, but once you get used to the idea, it is so very rewarding—and even fun! If you remember the following three things, it will become a lot easier to dive in.
1: You are not a failure.
If you need to do a major revision at any stage, whether it’s your outline because you’re stuck on draft one or it’s your queried manuscript because your dream agent just sent back an R&R, it doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. It means that your story has more potential than what’s been realized so far, and with some more work, you can reach it.
The only story that fails is the one you quit working on too soon (not to say you should never shelf a story—but it’s generally worth considering a rewrite first). Even if a specific story idea turns out truly unsalvageable, you haven’t failed as a writer. You’ve put in hours of practice in your craft and learned important things about what does or doesn’t work. Major revisions and rewrites are victories, not losses.
2: You’re not losing anything by rewriting.
Don’t be afraid that major revision means losing something you love in your writing. You may need to cut or replace major characters, conflicts, or subplots, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have less of your story. It means that you’ll have more of your best, truest story. Besides, the story elements that you replace are never truly gone—the ones you love most will be waiting for you in your old files or notebooks, ready to remind you where you’ve been. And who knows? Maybe they’ll get their chance to come back to life in a different story.
3: You’ll find pleasant surprises.
Are you still worried that a rewrite will be a chore? While it is a lot of work, it doesn’t have to be a negative experience—in fact, if you tackle it with the right mindset, it can be a positive one. Do you remember the joy and excitement you felt as you first got to know your story? Maybe it was while you were mentally fleshing out that special idea you had. Maybe it was while you were writing your first draft and discovering things about your characters that you wouldn’t have initially guessed were there.
That excitement goes on! When you invest your time and creativity into reexamining the heart of your story, you’ll be surprised all over again by the new things you learn about who your characters are, where your story will take them, and what worlds you can build through your words. You’ll find yourself realizing, “So that’s why she did that!” “This is what the consequence of that choice is!” and more. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of a lightbulb moment as your story becomes deeper and truer.
You are not alone.
There’s a fourth thing to remember as you get ready to fix your house of play dough and revise your story: you’re not in this alone. Pretty much any successful writer out there will be able to tell you stories of where their books used to be and how much they had to change to get where they are now—and you can bet they’re not sorry they went through the work!
Not only have others gone through this process ahead of you, there are people who can help you along the way. If you’re a work-through-it-on-your-own person, there are resources out there to help you go step-by-step through the writing and revision process that fits you best. If you’re a get-peer-help person, there are options for finding critique partners or beta readers within the writing community. Finally, if you’re a consult-a-professional person, there are plenty of freelance editors out there who offer developmental edits. We love finding that spark in your story of what works, as well as pinpointing the places you can dig deeper or find a truer path for your characters. Don’t be afraid to reach out! We’re here to care for, not judge, your story.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me by email or comment. If you’re someone who’s gone through major rewrites, consider leaving a comment with your experiences to help encourage others who are deciding if and how to take that same step.
You may not be able to fix your house’s wobbly foundation with a pretty paint job, but that’s not your only answer—when you’re willing to squish that play dough together and rebuild things a little straighter, you’ll wind up with a house that stands firm—and a novel that does the same.