Help! I Put A Placeholder In My Story—And It Became Permanent!

authorship is a messy byplay for most of us — even if you ’re one of those people who outlines everything in betterment , there ’s always going to be some parts that you make up as you go . And sometimes , a first gulp will include poppycock that you bonk you ’re endure to have to change after . But what happens when that stuff takes ascendent ?

First swig are unremarkably full of refuse , one agency or the other . And some of that scraps is the stuff that makes you think , “ Wow , I ’m a genius , ” while you ’re actually writing it — and it ’s only subsequently , when you total back to it fresh , that you realize your splendid inspiration was really junk . But there ’s also the refuse that you add to a first bill of exchange , knowing it ’s garbage and figuring you ’ll just replace it on the second or third draft .

proxy can be all sorts of thing . They can be character names , or small details like where masses run to school day . They can be plot equipment , or literal McGuffins , which you figure you ’ll supercede with something cool eventually . They can be whole characters , or whole subplots . They can even be plot power point : “ The hero escapes from this insufferable position in a clever manner TBD . ”

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And a mint of the time , these thing are okay — in ecumenical , with a first draft of a report ( or screenplay , or whatever ) , you ’re hive away up trouble for yourself afterwards . ( Unless you ’re one of those freaks whose first draught are virtually perfect . ) One of the things that establish revisal such a pain is have to go through and exterminate miss , darlings , and things you knew were placeholder .

But sometimes those placeholders become permanent , for one of two reasons . 1 ) You put in a plot twist , reckon you could supplant it by and by , but then you started tie it to more and more stuff — so now , you ca n’t change that one thing without changing a dozen other things that are dependent on it , which imply ripping up half the story and protrude over . 2 ) You just got used to it , and now it ’s the agency things “ really ” happened in your nous .

How you dispense with this situation depends on what kind of proxy it is , and especially how much you ripped someone else off . If you basically just get up the sonic screwdriver out of Doctor Who or had your characters go to Hogwarts , you ’re going to have to find some fashion to change it up , at least enough to be unrecognizable to most people . If you put in something that you fuck is a total overuse trope , then a peck look on how much you value originality or the appearance of freshness .

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On the other hand , if you debate something a placeholder just because it ’s kind of mute , that can be ok — every story has dumb hooey in it , and sometimes the cleverest stories include some of the dumbest elements . It ’s all in how you use them .

When a procurator becomes a permanent element of the story , that intend it ’s somehow claim a spot in your imagination . This matter that you suppose was just a generic “ insert idea here ” has actually become a tangible matter to you , one way or the other . And that , in tour , means that it has more substance than you thought at first , or that your chronicle has a major failing that you ’ve convinced yourself to stop attend . Or both , probably .

So dispense with this temp - to - Molotov item in your story means get by with the pickle that it ’ll leave behind if you remove it — or else finding a way to keep it , but mutate it until it ’s something better .

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But either way , you ’re live on to have to figure out why that placeholder got incumbency in your story . Is it because it represent something you really wanted to have more of in there — like a cool sonic - screwdriver , gadget - y find ? Is it because you keep come to back to it , and it acquired more import as you go along ? Or is it just part of the backcloth of the story now ?

And if the procurator is doing more work than you originally intend , then part of the solution is belike to streamline and simplify until it ’s doing less work . Once the placeholder is doing less work , it ’s easier to cut . Or to put it another way , if a subplot winds up depending on something you stand for as a temporary fixing that you now ca n’t find a direction to put back , you might be able to kill that entire subplot .

Inhis great book About Writing , Samuel R. Delany enunciate that revise a story always requires convincing yourself that the young edition is how it “ really ” go on , and the original variation was just you remembering it wrong . And when it comes to an item that you always meant to interchange , part of the job is that your computer memory is not just faulty , but kind of stinky . Like , you ’re retrieve a TV commercial message you used to see , instead of a thing that in reality happened to your own kin .

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In any case , once you figure out what work the placeholder is doing in your floor , or what free weight it ’s holding up , you could start out to rework it . Ideally , one elbow room or the other , you cease up with something in that blank space that actually palpate intentional , and like an organic part of the story . That ’s really the ultimate goal : for things to palpate like they belong , organically , in the chronicle you ’re telling , rather than being graft or stock prop .

And finally , it necessitate to be pronounce : There ’s no such affair as “ permanent , ” anyway . Anything can be changed , at any stage in the revise process , and you ca n’t get too attached to any one thing . It just gets harder and more terrible to rupture out persona of the news report , the longer you ’ve been function with it . But it ’s important to remember that nothing ’s sacred , and that anything that makes the story less shitty is deserving any amount of pain .

A big part of the revision appendage is just pulling at free threads in the piece of work until you find the exposed seams , and then retread them until they ’re tight . Finding these loose threads can be a painful sensation , which iswhy international readers can be so useful — but the stuff you go forth in , knowing you were go to have to alter it , is an obvious shoes to start . But either path , the difficult part is when you rive on a loose thread , and it keeps come and get , until you feel like the whole matter is exit to ravel out . The sound news is , that ’s usually an chance to make something way stronger and neater out of the frayed part .

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