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Just hit a wall with my recycled city writing prompt
The idea was a society that built everything from scrap. It seemed fresh when I read the prompt. But my plot keeps circling back to trash sorting lectures. I want action and heart, not just a green lesson. Feels like I'm writing a pamphlet instead of a story.
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andrewwilliams6mo ago
Oof, my buddy Nate had the same problem with his robot story. He kept writing repair manuals until he remembered his bot’s favorite thing was finding old concert posters in the scrap. Suddenly he had a character, not a lesson.
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thomas8156mo ago
That concert poster detail is cool. Did Nate's story stay about the robot's hobby after that, @andrewwilliams?
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sam4376mo ago
But what if the repair manuals were actually more interesting than the concert posters? Sometimes those little quirks just feel tacked on, like you're checking a box for a personality trait instead of letting the character grow from the plot. A robot that's good at its job could be way more compelling than one with a random collectible hobby... the story might lose its edge if you swap the technical stuff for something cute. Maybe Nate's first idea had a cool, quiet sort of character in the manuals that he just didn't see yet.
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derekhunt5mo ago
Forget the trash, show me the family that built their home from a crashed spaceship.
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