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Q&A Curbing Self-Indulgent Writing

At some point, all fiction becomes self-conscious; not a big deal. The most important question is: does the narrative and story flow well and easily? Is it lively? Are you getting your point acro...

posted 8y ago by idiotprogrammer‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

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#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:55:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26025
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar idiotprogrammer‭ · 2019-12-08T05:55:24Z (almost 5 years ago)
At some point, all fiction becomes self-conscious; not a big deal.

The most important question is: does the narrative and story flow well and easily? Is it lively? Are you getting your point across?

You can delete the self-indulgent stuff during edit. Or you may decide during editing that it is the most important part of the story! Don't worry about that; just be entertaining/witty/profound...

I typically find that the break-the-form/reflexive fiction/self-consciousness drops out naturally during edit stage of its own heaviness.

As far as wasting time, it's all a matter of degree and perspective. I tend to wonder if every time I sit to write something I am wasting my time. Nothing new about that! I sometimes do clean rough drafts, but sometimes my rough drafts contain a lot of wild stuff that I know is not going to remain. (I just don't know until I've finished the rough draft which wild stuff belongs in the final version).

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-01-12T23:39:25Z (almost 8 years ago)
Original score: 1