Hey, working on a story that I cannot seem to get right. Right now I am on draft 4. I am trying to symbolize a Stone man to a man with lack of influence and attention. The outline is rough... the story seems too played out when I write it and I’m looking for twist and turns to make it exciting. My character development is satisfying though. Anyways good idea, bad idea I’m running with it. Does it seem cliché to you? It is a why bother or does it have potential to become a good short story? I keep asking myself these question and its taking so much time re-writing trying to get it right.
Rewriting something over and over to try and get it right is like smacking your head against a tree to make the apples fall. It really doesn't work.
Sometimes you need to go take a walk. Maybe you'll find something interesting, like a ladder or a giant stick, that can solve your problem. Leave your novel for a while (like a week, maybe two) and go read a book, watch a few movies, study some ancient civilisation.
Another option is to do something daring. Climb the tree, grab a chainsaw, hit it with lightening. Do something that is completely out of whack for your novel and watch everything fall apart and weave itself back together in new and peculiar ways. Take a few ideas and play around with them in your head. What if your main character was thirteen inches shorter? What if your sidekick had an unhealthy obsession with books that made them neglect their duties in the plot? What if your bad guy had a rocket launcher? What if you switched it to a magical/non magical universe, or changed genre completely? (You don't *have* to go with the ideas you end up with, but play with them anyway.)
Don't be scared of chopping off a few branches. You can just put them in a big pile and tell yourself that you'll weave them back in later, and if not, you can make a pretty cool bonfire with them.
Lastly, you could just get someone else to grab the apples for you. Hand your story to someone else and ask *them* to tear it apart. Once they've burned it and chopped off the charred branches there will be room for new ideas to grow.
Just stop headbutting the tree. It becomes habit. It doesn't create anything new, only breaks your brain. Rather than helping you to solve the problem it will just make you stupider.
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