: Re: Is it possible to read your own words too much? (and begin to hate them as a result) I'm working through my chapter 1 for about the 5th time. As a generality, I love my story and characters,

@Holmes449

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Don't do it.

You shouldn't be doing something in writing that isn't at least tolerable. You need a different style of writing.

I say that as a writer that has gone over a three page scene THIRTY times, but I found it tolerable, and I was crafting something critical. It was not mechanistic. I don't worry about grammar, or voice. I do worry about consistency.

But I hear stories and voices and, like a hiccup in a song, I can feel when something isn't perfect, when dialogue is wrong, when action isn't natural, so I read and fiddle until it sounds right. The cadence of speech is right, the time of exposition is right.

When I write I am a narrator and an actor, a story teller. I care about clarity, not grammar. I care about creating an immersive scene without drowning the reader in too much detail. I care about sustaining attention by sustaining the chain of conflicts.

When your story sounds right to you, put it away for a week. Let your short and mid term memory systems fade it out, so they aren't providing any inadvertent help to the printed word. THEN read it again, and if there are problems, fix them. Do it again. It won't take 12 cycles of editing.

Work in a way that you enjoy 75% of the time, and can tolerate the other 25%. Writing can be your job without dreading sitting down to work.

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