Otherworld Ink

The initial phase of writing a story is often characterized by a flood of inspiration. Sometimes in order, sometimes not. Sometimes retconning things on the fly. Whatever it takes to get the thing written.

Once this phase has run its course, you’re left with a huge pile of interesting ideas that basically add up to a story. Sure, they need a little rearranging and refinement, but you can Make Something out of this! But then, as you move on to editing and revising, something happens. As you’re putting all those great ideas together, some of them… don’t fit.

Oh dear.

Maybe you wrote multiple version of the same scene, trying to figure out the best angle for it. Maybe your main character evolved into a better, more complex version of themself who would no longer say or do some of the things you wrote them saying and doing early in the story.

And you know, deep down in the pit of your writer soul, that your work will be much stronger once these wayward elements are gone. The plot will come together, the characterization will solidify, the pacing will smooth out…

But it can be so hard to let go.

Because even if those ideas don’t fit, some of them are still good ideas. It seems such a waste to delete them. And what if, muses forbid, you change your mind? What if you decide to revert to the original version of a character or a scene, and all of that excellent material is just… gone?

This is why you need a Discard Pile.

What’s a Discard Pile?

Have you ever played Pokémon? Magic the Gathering? Yu-Gi-Oh? Any card game, really. If you have, this will be a familiar concept.

A Discard Pile is part of your workspace – digital or physical – where you put your discarded ideas. They’re out of the way, but they still exist in case you need to bring them back into play.

Whenever I start a new writing project in Scrivener, one of the first things I do is create a file labeled “Discard Pile” where I can put all the word scraps that don’t work with my main story. If, instead, I were using one or more Word docs to wrangle a project, the Discard Pile would have its own Word doc. If I were working with physical pieces of paper, the Discard Pile might be a shoe box.

You get the idea.

How It Helps

A huge part of writing is editing, and a huge part of editing is cutting what doesn’t work. But cutting things is hard. Writing is hard. When we’re editing our work, it can be hard to delete the words that we labored to assemble, even when we know it’s the right thing to do. With a Discard Pile, making cuts is easy. Even if you remove something from the work, it isn’t completely gone. This makes those hard decisions about what to keep and what to toss a bit less hard.

There’s also a secondary benefit that comes at the project’s end.

Composting the Leftovers

Once you’ve finalized your project and published it in whatever form (if at all) you’ll find yourself with a lovely pile of leftovers. Now you get to enjoy sifting through your Discard Pile for tidbits to add to your Idea Bank. An idea that flopped in one project may be just what the next one needs. Look for things that shine: character quirks, location descriptions, funny scenes, romantic meet-cutes… Anything that feels like it has promise.

But don’t feel like you have to keep everything. Some ideas get removed because they’re just not that good. Others may be good, but too similar to other banked ideas. Still others may have sounded good before, but now they leave you uninspired. That’s fine. Don’t hold on to anything that doesn’t move you. Save the gems; toss the slag.

In Conclusion

Try creating a Discard Pile for your next project – or a current one! I can’t guarantee it will improve your writing, but if you struggle with making cuts to your work, it probably will.