Writing Ramble: That Scene Doesn't Work, Just Hit Delete

Greetings, mutants.

Your neighbor is trimming hedges, because you can prune a plant. And with a bad scene in your story, a lot of times you can prune the scene.

But sometimes you need to uproot the entire structure. 

You can't polish a turd. Sometimes, you can work for many, many hours, but some scenes are just D.O.A and you're S.O.L. 

I'm gonna give an example outside of writing. I've seen people try to improve a DND system by homebrewing and fixing and updating, but a lot of times, if they just used an entirely different system from another game they would've been fine. And instead of trying to make your own sci-fi weapons system, maybe just use a sci-fi RPG. I also play Traveler RPG, and the fighting system sucks. I mean, the DND system is superior by far for battle. 

And then you got mods that try to update all kinds of things in Minecraft, instead of just making a new interface. Somethings are broken. 

That's what occurs with stories as well. Sometimes a scene doesn't work. Here's some hints: 

-If you keep dreading looking at that scene, there's an issue. 

-If you have issues writing that scene a lot, and want to just move onto something else, that scene is boring and sucks.

-If you can't figure out the actual purpose of a scene, you need to take a flamethrower to the page (unless you live in Maryland, and if you live in California, have a license.) 

In any of these cases, instead of trying to pour peroxide on a zombie bite, try cutting the infected limb off. You might just live better without that zombie arm, going around, scratching people, punching randomly. You get the picture, you don't want dead parts, you don't want a zombie story.

So yeah, that's my writing advice for today.