Comments on: Helpful advice on saving your scraps.

By: The best writing mistakes and how to make them.

The best writing mistakes and how to make them. — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:06:45 +0000

[...] How do you clean out a closet? You fling open the door, dump everything on the floor, and start sorting stuff into piles. Writing is the same. You start the process by dumping all your thoughts and ideas onto the page – then you begin to sort through them. You organize the ideas worth keeping and throw away the trash. You box and label your thoughts: grouping similar ideas together in paragraphs and sections, then labeling them with headings and subheads. If you write something you like, but don’t know where to put it, save it in your pile of scraps (to see Helpful advice on saving your scraps, click here). [...]

By: maggie

maggie — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:30:33 +0000

It’s interesting to see that someone else has a similar process … instead of a a scraps bucket, I (almost) always create an “Extra” document for the one I’m working on … filled with undeletable brilliance, that, as you say, almost never makes it back into the final draft.

By: 3000messages

3000messages — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:57:43 +0000

Good point, Margaret. It makes me think of the “special features” on movie DVDs. I love getting to learn more about the real story behind a film. It’s often my my favorite part of the DVD.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:49:33 +0000

Nice post. It was a while back and I can’t remember who said it…an agent I believe…but similar to your director’s cuts, in fiction writing, a nice use of story scraps can be “additional material” to post on your website for net-saavy fans. Often those snippets give something more that didn’t quite fit in the story, but still has entertainment value.