: Re: Once written down it's set in stone What's the strange property/disease/habit called in which you need everything you write down to be 'the truth' once it's written down. Even while drafting,

@Annie587

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Keying off Kirk, why do writers have this problem? Some thoughts that come to my mind:

As Kirk indicated, a variation of the Sunk Cost Fallacy. "I've put so much effort into this, I just can't throw it away." And so you spend 20 hours figuring out how to make the story work, working around this bad idea, when you could have thrown it away and re-written it in 10 hours.
"I don't want to admit that I made a mistake." And so you produce a final story that is less than the best you could do because you can't be honest with yourself, admit that an idea was bad, and cut it out. Sometimes you have to amputate a limb if you want to survive.
"This was so much fun to write." Just because something was fun to create doesn't mean it's any good. Just look at some of my carpentry work.
"But I just love this scene/character/whatever." It may be that you wrote a brilliant and witty piece of dialog. Or an exciting action scene. Or whatever. It may be that it's some of the best writing you've ever done. But if it doesn't fit in this story, you have a problem. Like you write a scene where a character has a bunch of really clever and funny lines. But you've painted this character to be bland and unimaginative. The clever lines just don't fit in his mouth. If you love the scene enough, maybe save it and see if you can recycle it in another story. But don't keep it where it doesn't fit just because you like it.

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