My main character's motivation completely fell apart yesterday.

I was 8,000 words into a draft. Realized their entire reason for the quest made zero sense. Spent three hours just rewriting their backstory from scratch. Anyone have tips for fixing a broken plot engine mid-story?

3 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

3 Comments

tarahart6mo ago

My cousin wrote a whole 50 page screenplay before he realized his detective had no reason to care about the case. He had to go back and give the victim a secret family tie to the main character, which actually made the whole thing way better.

2

noah_roberts6mo ago

Isn't that how it always goes? I've definitely done the same thing, @tarahart, where you write yourself into a corner and have to backtrack. That kind of fix can feel like a pain at the time, but it usually makes the story so much stronger in the end.

2

finleythomas6mo ago

Yeah @tarahart that's the worst but it always works out.

4