I've said it before: Imaginative writing is tough. Most writers spend an enormous amount of time coming up with characters, settings, plots, and work endless hours to tweak, edit, and perfect their work (while avoiding perfectionism, of course.) I have plenty of good days, when the writing seems to just flow, when the dialog and plot seem to come out of me effortlessly. But I have just as many days when I spend an hour or two and crank out maybe five hundred words. Unfortunately, every amazing short story or novel an author finishes is most likely preceded by a dozen more manuscripts that only made it as far as the shredder. It's just the way creativity works.

But what should you do if you've killed a story that contains things you like, such as a character, a scene, a line of dialog, a plot point? It'd be a shame to ditch everything just because an overall idea isn't working, so don't do it!

In the next three weeks, I'm going to provide you with three tips for rescuing good ideas from bad stories.

Next up: Tip #1: Steal from yourself

Are you a fan of horror and post-apocalyptic fiction?

Join my email list and receive a free short story, audio book, and theme song for "Beta":

A monster terrorizes an isolated village in the mountains of Eastern Europe, draining the blood of its victims, leaving them frozen in the snow. The villagers hunt wolves, decapitate “vampires,” but the murders continue. As each new body is found, the residents grow more and more paranoid. Who will be next? Will it ever end?

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