Misdiagnosing the Plot by Lani Longshore

Lani LongshoreTwo doctors decided that the doctor who diagnosed the rash on my palm a couple of months ago was mistaken. “The good news is, what he prescribed didn’t do you any harm,” one of them said.

The better news is, I can use that in my writing.

Stay with me here. Diagnosis is hard, and diagnosing skin issues is one of the hardest. It’s the same with writing. You know something is wrong is with the story, but what? Is there a hole in the plot? Are the characters not playing together nicely? Is the subtext fighting with everything else? You’re at your wits’ end and you ask for help.

Now comes the real hard part. You ask people you trust for help, but what if they misjudge the problem too? What if you’re advised to rejigger the plot, but that doesn’t solve the problem? Back to square one with different advisors, right? But they could be wrong too.

I can’t tell you what the solution is for your problem piece. For mine, I usually let the words rest long enough that my inner critic shuts up and the inner genius can get busy (I’ve had one piece resting for six years now, so this isn’t exactly a quick fix). In the meantime, nothing I did has done any harm. Tweaking the plot, changing the characters, revisiting the subtext—that’s all important work that will help me be a better writer for the next project.

So, thank your advisors, beta readers, and critique partners for all their misdiagnoses. In the end, it’s worth it.