Posted on 24/02/2023 in Dorothy Says

That’s Me In The Corner

5-minute read

There’s this face I make when I’m writing sometimes. It’s hard to describe (yes, I am aware of the irony of a writer writing that) but it’s a bit like this emoji: 😩

That’s the face I make when I realise I’ve written myself into a corner.

I do it all the time. ALL. THE. TIME.

With All My Lies Are True, I wrote myself into several corners. I knew the story and where it was going and where it needed to end up, but whew! Trying to get Verity and Serena and Poppy to do what I wanted them to was a difficult task.

With My Other Husband, it was the entire ending that looked like one giant corner I would never escape from. For the first time ever, I didn’t know where I needed to end up and a few days before deadline, I turned to my husband and said: ‘So how am I ending this again?’

To clarify, I knew how it should end, but it didn’t seem to be faithful enough to Cleo and Heath and Wallace and Lola and Trina and everyone else I had come to know and love.

Anyways, I realised at that point, like I do with every book, that I had written myself into a corner. My task was – and always is – how to get myself out of it.

So I did what I always tend to do: I put it to one side and ignored it.

Yes, it’s the equivalent of creating a big old mess and walking away from it and pretending it doesn’t exist, but after 18 books, I’ve come to accept and embrace that it’s the best way.

I simply activate the square brackets [ ] and fill them with [WRITE MORE]or [SORT THIS OUT] or [MAKE MORE INTERESTING] and write something else in the book.

Obviously like any big old mess – I have to come back and sort it out at some time, BUT it’s not so scary and frustrating by then. Because once I’ve written more of the book, I can usually see where that particular scene needs to go. Or if that scene needs to just go completely.

And I can do that because I’m not restricted to writing what happens next in the story. I write what’s in my head at that time and if that leads me to a corner, then so be it. I will get there, make the face and get the hell out of there till next time.

With My Other Husband, I got out of that particular corner by reading (notediting) the book again and discovering that the corner wasn’t actually there – I just needed to be brave and do what needed to be done with those characters, even if it was to make a devastating choice.

If you’re the type of writer who always has to write chapters in order, that’s excellent. But if you’re in a corner, you don’t know where to go next or your plan doesn’t really chime with who your characters are turning out to be, try leaving it for now, and writing something else. Write the very end and see if it gives you the much-needed boost to get back on track.

Can’t promise it will 100 per cent definitely work for you but it’s better than just sitting there making the 😩 face, surely?

So, today’s writing tip:

If you’re in a writing corner:

• Leave it to come back to at another time.
• Write the very end of the story to see if it loosens where you were in the story.
• Go back to where you were before things went wrong and see which path your characters could take instead.
• Ask yourself what would be most realistic for the journey your characters are on.

Speak to you soon lovelies.

Dorothy x

(Please excuse typos, I’m only human.)

PS Don’t forget: you can pre-order a signed copy of My Other Husband here and unsigned copies here and here to make sure it arrives in your life as soon as possible after it’s released.