What About Worldbuilding? #25

Good evening, y’all. Let’s get into it...

Looking Back to Look Ahead

Right so, here’s the deal… a lot of old ideas are just awful. Complete crap. We all have to own that, it’s part of writing. No matter how we try, things sometimes don’t work out. What then do we do with those ideas, do we chuck them into our internal incinerator and forget them entirely?

That seems wasteful, no? We did put effort into those ideas, even if they didn’t work out. There’s got to be something there and, even if there isn’t, it’s okay to put them somewhere you can see them.

Graveyards

Where should you put them? A personal graveyard, a document you can idle through when you’re stuck or searching for inspiration. Remember the key here, just because ideas were bad doesn’t mean you should toss them out. You were inspired when you created them, flashes of that survive to this day… and, hell, maybe there’s something there you can rework, some little piece of an idea that can be repurposed.

Take your time when putting together a graveyard doc, wiki, or w/e. If you can, index it. Summarize things, write notes to yourself about what didn’t work and why. Leave encouragement for yourself to stumble upon weeks, or years, down the line to pep yourself up.

I’ve got a doc myself, it’s a stupid number of pages long but I’m glad I have it. It’s nice to see what I tried in the past, especially given how frequently I wander away from a world to explore another.

I find it pleasant to revisit places and characters, despite the fledgling quality of most. Visit, reminisce, and maybe cherry-pick a concept or two to bring back to whatever I’m working on.

It’s nice.

Why Bother?

That’s fair to ask.

I don’t know, honestly. It’s a gut feeling. If I wrote something and it is complete trash, that doesn’t make it worthless. I still made it and, if one person’s trash is another’s treasure, what then is my own trash?

It’s a place for insights… for reflection, for growth. Looking back can let me acknowledge the mistakes of older works and look for ways they could have been better.

I don’t know why I’m harping on about this, I’m just in a reflective sort of mood today. I looked at an old story and thought to myself… “What the hell was I thinking?” but, also, “This ain’t all bad.”

That’s it, really. Build a graveyard of your own, take strolls in it.

Maybe you’ll find something worth bringing back with you.

See you next month.