Ever get stuck searching for the perfect word while writing?
Maybe it's a character's name or place name, a creature or piece of magic, or even a whole piece of research.
When you're in drafting mode, you don't want to slow your flow down by stopping to search for the perfect word or concept that fits.
Enter: [Come back to this].
When a word or concept threatens to halt your flow, drop a symbolic reminder that will remind you to come back to it in your rewrites or edits. Then keep going.
Some people literally use [come back to this], the full angle brackets and words.
I like to just us a series of '???' or 'XXX', as I will never have either of these deliberately in my work and it stands out so easily.
Once you're finished your draft, you can use the Ctrl+F function to find them and either do a round of just going back through and fixing them up, or fix them up as you go back through an edit round.
I can't remember the last piece of work I didn't do this on. It's so useful.
Save drafting for drafting, and editing for editing. [Come back to this] and ??? and XXX.
Embrace the unfinished and let your ideas flow without disruption. You can come back for the rest.
Comments