: Re: Procrastination on a Crucial Scene in my Book I'm in the process of writing a book and through my plans I know I have a fairly crucial, game-changing scene coming up. I can't help but put

@Debbie451

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You're letting the perfect become the enemy of the good.

You know it's a critical scene, and you're scared to screw it up. That's reasonable. The problem is that you're so scared of screwing it up that you can't even let yourself start, because you're afraid of "breaking it."

Rationally, of course, you know that you can edit, rewrite, or start over. But the fear of the blank page can be crushing.

So you find ways around it. Some suggestions:

Sit down with a good friend and a recording device. Tell your
friend about the scene, in minute detail. Explain what you want to
do. Tell the friend who is in the scene, what they're doing, what
your goals are as the author. Share some dialogue. Totally riff.
Don't be afraid to say things out of context or jump back and forth
in the storyline. Have a conversation. The next day, play back the
recording and transcribe as much as you can. That will give you
something on the page which you can then edit and flesh out.
Write a detailed outline, or detailed notes. Don't worry about the
wording. In fact, make it choppy on purpose, so you are deliberately
NOT worried about how it sounds. Just do a dump of everything you
want to accomplish in that scene, and then you can rearrange the
bits. Again, this gives you something on the page.
Write it backwards. Seriously. Why not? Start from the last line and
put things before it. Takes some of the pressure off because you've
already gotten to the end part.

The point is that you cannot edit a blank page. You need to get something underway.

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