Any hacks to deal with all those tiny blank spots?

[Kasper Hviid]

So, I have a short story which is pretty much finished. But I have 5 blank areas where I need to add things like the description of the prison guard or the description of a meal. I often end up with a story that has all those empty spots where there were supposed to be words.

Is there a smart way to deal with this? One thing I consider is to focus on a single one at a time, to avoid choice paralysis. And maybe brainstorming three different paragraphs, and then selecting the best.

 

[Vaporo]

My personal method is to just "brute force" any sections that I'm not sure about, then leave a comment to come back and look it over later. A lot of the time it turns out functional enough and I'll just end up leaving it as is.

 

[Devor]

For me I write a scene in phases. First I dialogue it, outlining the heart of the scene like a script - this is usually the fun part, and I often write out a few lines of the deeper POV while I'm at it. Then I write the "intro," like three paragraphs, and for some reason writing those paragraphs is like torture. Then I flush out the dialogue, which is easy enough since it's already planned out, and covers the bulk of the word count. Then I have the "bridge," which is this little section linking the intro to the dialogue; it's often very short but I usually end up running through six different ideas before landing on something.

I consider that four "sittings" for roughly a thousand words, although the goal is to do a sitting, then grab a water, move a little, check on facebook, then do another sitting. I usually dialogue multiple scenes in one day, often running through the chapter, and then work on those scenes roughly one at a time. And of course many scenes don't fit neatly into that pattern, and I try to just go with it.

Sometimes there's still gaps though. And for those I usually punch in a few placeholder lines, and then I edit it in future sittings until it looks right. But I should add, those "gaps" aren't usually obvious, and it's one of the things I'm specifically looking for in edits. "Wait, I wrote this scene, and I just realized... what happened to the setting?" or "He's supposed to be really happy here and I need to get into that a little more." Often the parts that are missing are missing because they're hard, and an opportunity to deliver the moment, so I don't want them to slip by.

 

[Toby Johnson]

write anyway, youll be surprised, even if you think its terrible you ca still write and you never know, it could end up being good