Warning: that writing group beta swap ruined my prompt for good

I traded prompts with a guy named Dale at the library meetup in Portland last month. He spent 20 minutes picking apart my 'haunted lighthouse' idea, then handed me a 3 page outline about a sentient vending machine. I rewrote my whole thing to match his style, and the next session nobody even reacted to it. Dale's own story got praised, but mine felt like a copy of a copy. Has anyone else let one person's critique derail a solid prompt they were excited about?

2 comments

2 Comments

lilya761mo ago

That punning detective bit got me laughing though, because it hits so close to home. Once you let someone else's voice take over, it's like your brain forgets which ideas actually belonged to you in the first place. I did the same thing with a forest spirit story, swapped it for a corporate satire thing because a writer friend said my stuff was "too soft." Ended up with a ghost who filed expense reports, and honestly, I couldn't even look at the file for a month. The lighthouse thing is still in there, you just gotta clear out the vending machine noise first. Sometimes the best fix is literally rewriting your old outline from scratch, not trying to patch up the mess Dale made.

oscarc121mo ago

You ever get that sinking feeling when you realize you just traded your own voice for someone else's bad advice? I did the same thing once with a buddy who swore my gritty crime story needed more jokes, and I ended up with a detective who kept punning at crime scenes. Took me three weeks to remember the original idea was the one that got me fired up in the first place. Dale probably means well, but a vending machine story is his bag, not yours, so dust off that lighthouse and trust your own gut next time.