22
The waitress at Denny's who fixed my plot twist
3 AM, booth 14, I was outlining a scene where the detective finds a note in a pie. She refilled my coffee and said, 'If you want it to feel real, the note should be wrong.' I asked what she meant. She said people leave fake clues on purpose, and the real one is usually in the part you ignore. She walked off before I could ask more. I rewrote the whole chapter that morning. Has anyone else gotten story help from a complete stranger who had no idea they were helping?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
cora5181mo ago
A barista in Portland once told me to delete my first chapter, best writing advice I ever got.
-1
wood.faith1mo ago
Baristas give a lot of advice, @cora518. Usually it's about oat milk. Deleting chapter one only works if chapter two actually starts the story. Otherwise you just have a shorter book.
6