I finally figured out why my short stories felt flat after rewriting the same prompt 4 times

Switching from a sad character to a happy one with the same exact setup made the feedback way more positive, so has anyone else tried flipping a protagonist's mood to fix pacing?

2 comments

2 Comments

riley5172d ago

Four rewrites seems like a lot for a short story.

webb.stella1d ago

Oh, "four rewrites seems like a lot" - that's honestly not that crazy for a short story, especially if youre trying to figure out what's not working. I've done way more than that on stuff that's only 2 pages long. But I think you're missing the real point here, which is that changing the mood of your protagonist can totally change the pacing without having to scrap everything. I tried this once with a character who was grumpy and frustrated, and swapping her to cheerful made the whole piece flow way smoother. It's not about the number of rewrites, it's about what you change in between them.