What “Let It Go” Really Means
By Lisa Cron | April 14, 2016 |
photo by Doran via Flickr
There’s a meme I always see out there on Facebook (and that’s the whole world, right?) that makes me crazy. It’s the often lotus-adorned command to “let it go.” Something’s happened to you, something’s bothering you, and you’re told to just let it go. As if the fact that it’s bothering you is somehow your fault, and you’re purposefully holding onto it, as if it’s a choice. And, even more insidious, as if by “letting it go” –poof! It’s gone, and so is the pain, desire, and regret.
This is something I can’t let go because it’s so deeply wrong. Not only isn’t “letting go” possible in the way it’s so often taken to mean, but it shames us in the process. Now we have two problems: that thing we “can’t let go of” and the fact that we’re somehow morally weak because we’re “letting it” bother us. Yikes!
The reason this is on my mind today is that Jennie Nash and I have just finished teaching the beta version of our online workshop based on my upcoming book, Story Genius. It was thrilling to see so many writers – both fledgling and seasoned — crack open their stories and write with such power. A few writers, however, struggled much harder than others, and when we stepped back to try to figure out why, we noticed that the biggest thing that held them back had nothing to do with their ability to write. What held them back most was what they’d already written.
We’ve all heard the adage that we should kill our darlings and we all think, “Yes, right, of course!” But what we’re envisioning is a finely wrought sentence here or there, a couple of pages that don’t work, maybe a scene. It’s hard to kill these little darlings, because they’re not only part of what we’ve written, they’re part of us. We made them, we love them. Tough as it is, however, writers do often muster the courage to hit the delete button and move on. In these cases, we know what’s good for our story. We know what must be done, and so we let it go.
But no writer ever in the history of the world thought that the darling this adage refers to might be the first half of the book or the whole entire thing.
But often that is the case. And should someone suggest that you simply “let it go” (lotus-image adorned or not) your first impulse is probably to punch them in the nose (mine would be). Your second is to curl up in the fetal position and sob. (Ditto.) I’ve been there. It hurts. You worked insanely hard, you put everything into what you wrote.
But your plot now turns out to be nothing more than a bunch of surface things that happen, because there’s no internal story to give it meaning. Or you’ve discovered that although you were writing forward to see where the muse took you, it turns out that said muse took you into the middle of a vast ocean and beat a hasty retreat. As Seneca so aptly pointed out a couple of millennia ago, “If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him.” Women either. (Let’s not get into how sexist the world was and still is. Another thing that makes me crazy. But that’s for another day. For now let’s, um, let it go.)
Going From Bad To Worse
Because for writers the real trouble starts when they double down, trying to fix the unfixable. They’re so inadvertently seduced by the siren song of what they’ve already written that they end up making an unsuccessful valiant try, worse.
That is totally normal, and it’s not something we set out to do on purpose; it has to do with how we’re wired. When it comes to rewriting, a writer’s tacit allegiance is to what they’ve already written, rather than to the story they’re telling. Especially when they’re not quite sure what that story actually is to begin with. We all do it.
Instead of digging into the story we want to tell, we try to find ways to make what we’ve already written logical. We try to harness an internal cause-and-effect trajectory to things that have no real causal relationship. Our goal is to create “connective tissue” between the scenes, and so stitch them together into a coherent whole. Hello Frankenstein! Sadly what tends to happen is that what didn’t make much sense to begin with, now makes even less sense.
Because here’s the thing: you can’t insert story logic from the outside in. The truth is that the minute a writer digs into the kind of internal story logic that could power their premise all the way to the end, it almost always renders moot everything they’ve already written.
This, ironically, makes it even harder to let it go, because now they’ve spent even more time on their manuscript. And giving up on it at the end of that very, very long day can mean only one thing: you suck as a writer.
Try letting that go. That sense of failure follows you around like a puppy.
No good comes of that.
The Solution
So how do writers let go of drafts that aren’t working? First, by accepting that – ouch – this situation sucks. You put all that work in, and gave up so much to it. Writing takes time, dedication, and the steel will to turn a blind eye to the other things in your life that clamor for your attention 24/7 (yes, smartphone, I’m talking about you!). You gave it your all, and it didn’t work. Ugh.
But, but, but, that doesn’t mean all is lost. Just because it sucks doesn’t mean you suck. Chances are you went down many roads you’ll never take again. You learned what not to do, which is enormously useful. And because you made this difficult decision – to let the draft go without letting your commitment to the story go — now you’re open to moving forward on a road that might get you to the story you want to tell. That’s an even bigger success.
That is what “let it go” really means. It doesn’t mean “put it out of your mind.” You can’t, because it will always be there in one form or another. It doesn’t mean put a wall around it to protect yourself. It doesn’t mean pretend it never happened. You can’t choose to forget it. You can’t choose not to feel the pain. But you can choose to reframe it.
That’s what many of the writers I’ve known and worked with have — at one time or another — chosen to do. I felt awful for them, watching that draft finally hit the dust. But what always surprised me is that for most of them, rather than being debilitating, abandoning a draft that isn’t working turned out to be liberating. Suddenly it wasn’t a failure any more, it was the path they had to travel down to get to the clearing from which they could now begin to envision their story. What’s more it gave them the courage to look back and have empathy for themselves, for what they were trying to do, and for what they’d learned in the process.
That’s when the paralysis that sets in when you’re not sure what to do lifts, and so does the desire to give the hell up and forget the whole damn thing. I am not saying that “letting it go” is easy. It most definitely is not. Change is always hard, because in order to change we have to leave something of ourselves behind. Will ditching what you’ve already written leave a scar? Probably.
But remember, behind every scar, there’s always an interesting story.
What about you, have you ever stood on the crossroad between what you’ve already written and the story you really want to tell? What did you do? (After you stopped sobbing, that is.)
[coffee]
Lisa Cron is the author of Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers From the Very First Sentence and Story Genius: How To Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste 3 Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere). Her video tutorial, Writing Fundamentals: The Craft of Story, can be found at Lynda.com. Her TEDx talk, Wired for Story, opened Furman University’s 2014 TEDx conference, Stories: The Common Thread of Our Humanity. A frequent speaker at writers conferences, schools and universities, Lisa’s passion has always been story. She currently works as a story coach helping writers, nonprofits, educators and journalists wrangle the story they’re telling onto the page; contact her here.
This post couldn’t be more timely. A few months back, I made the difficult decision to abandon the second half of my work-in-progress. My book editor confirmed what my beta critics had been trying to tell me. The story arc just didn’t work and it didn’t work because I hadn’t clearly stated the main character’s inner conflicts and goals. Now I have the challenge of writing 30,000 new words and in the process I have gone back to the first half of the story and made essential changes to create a more unified and coherent story arc. It’s difficult work, but, as you suggested, I am finding it liberating. I felt stuck before, and now I am writing more freely. I just finished reading Larry Brooks’ book, Story Fix (highly recommended) and Larry makes the same point. Unless you have a solid Concept and Premise, your novel could end up as merely a collection of plot points with no story. I can’t wait to read your new book. Lisa, thanks for the words of wisdom.
I love Larry! He does have a way of cutting to the bare essentials. I think of it as building a bridge. If you get halfway across and realize you don’t have enough concrete for the support structures, best to haul ass back to the start before you take a dive.
Good morning, Lisa. Thanks for the pick-me-upper.
Of course we can all relate. Some of us have abandoned more than one entire manuscript. I’ve got at least 6 full manuscripts and a couple dozen partials sitting on my hard drive. But those early experiments were a little easier to give up. Once I began writing novels that were almost not horrible, it became harder to cut the strings.
I’m currently working with an agent who is considering representation for my middle grade historical. He asked that I edit the first three chapters and resubmit them to him. I thought I was finished when I fired off the three chapters to my writing partner for a quick once-over. Well, she wrote back and said she loved chapter 1 and 3, and the first half of 2, but…
So I took another look through her eyes and discovered that, indeed, I wrote a lot of beautiful prose that had nothing to do with the story. Mind you, the agent already loves the story and has seen my ramblings in chapter 2. But I knew (even before my partner told me, I think) that it wasn’t working. So half of that chapter got slashed.
I’ll send the revised versioin back to the agent today. I’m confident the story is better now, especially in the world of middle-grade, where long meaningless paragraphs lead immediately to the video game option.
And I’m sure I’ll do a lot more chopping in the chapters and books to come. Just think of it as pruning. It’s ugly and painful, but you get more apples.
Thanks for the post. When is your book going to be available?
Lisa,
I always relish your words. I especially love this quote (which I’ll tweet): “Just because [your story] sucks, doesn’t mean you suck.”
I’ve written a hella sucky stories (I think I’m using that “cool kid” slang correctly) and, in one way or another, have learned a great deal from those efforts — i.e., what not to do. Some I may revisit and see if I can’t improve them, but most, I’ll let go and recognize them as the growth spurts they were.
And now, let’s SING!
“But now we’re sleeping at the edge
Holding something we don’t need.
All this delusion in our heads
Is gonna bring us to our knees.
So come on, let it go!
Just let it be!
Why don’t you be you
And I’ll be me.
Everything’s that’s broke
Leave it to the breeze.
Why don’t you be you
And I’ll be me.”
Okay…that’s enough Disney for one day. See you in Salem!
Very timely for me, as I’ve just realized that I’ve taken a wrong turn in a manuscript and will have to scrap a lot of it. Not sure what and how (yet) but what I have is a big muddle.
Sigh. But you’re right–it gave me relief to realize this.
The third novel I wrote was the point at which I learned not to be attached to my early drafts. Now I see them as the place where I discover the characters and let my mind consider possibilities. The early drafts also give me something I can put before critique partners, which leads to fruitful discussion.
The rewriting is the fun bit, because by the time I get down to serious plotting I know what the story is. So why sob and moan? Why expect to get it right first time? It’s the finished product that counts, not how long it took to produce it.
Wow, is this ever timely!
My current WIP began life as a work of narrative non-fiction, but 125 pages in I realized that sticking to the truth sucked all the life out of the story. I then made the mistake of trying to salvage some of my work, only adjust the tone a bit. Each draft I tinkered more. I made the story arc more clear (I thought). I followed the advice of beta readers and added more “intimacy” to the love story at the beginning of the manuscript. I put the word in quotes because I learned the hard way that sexual tension does not necessarily equate to intimacy.
All along readers have been telling me that there was something off about the beginning, but they could never be more specific. I finally showed the manuscript to a new reader, who also happens to be a fabulous writer. “You switched genres about a third of the way into the book,” she said. “The last two thirds sing. The first third is good, but I don’t think you set out to write a historical romance.
It was true. The story I meant to write is women’s historical fiction, and the last two thirds of the story was spot on. The first third, after all my tinkering, had indeed evolved into historical romance. No wonder agents were confused. Those that wanted historical romance quickly requested more and then rejected when the story veered away from that. Those that wanted women’s historical fiction never read far enough to find it.
I am now re-writing the first third of the story.
I’ve had the experience of having to pitch a pretty big chunk of a manuscript before. You’re definitely right, it was excruciating while I was working on it and a painful choice to trash it, but once I did I was a much healthier and happier writer.
I also think this applies to moving on to writing a next novel when you’re an unpublished author. You want so much to keep editing and keep querying until something happens, but at some point you have to “let it go,” at least enough to move on to a new project.
I’ve had to “let go” of several drafts of my WIP that I thought were decent. But here’s my question…How do I know if the draft I’m working on now is really want to hold onto or not? It feels as if I have the story…but now, not so sure. I guess I have to write it and send it along to some trusted beta readers to find out. But that feels like a lot of water under the bridge if I’ll have to let it go again! Any points about knowing when NOT to delete and start over (also the bane of writers) would be helpful.
A friend of mine once told me that she’d recently lost 165 pounds of ugly fat. I asked how and she said that she’d just dumped her boyfriend. I asked because she looked happier. I’m sure the sadness and tension leading up to the split was a nightmare. I’ve had that same feeling when I realized I had to a dump beginning, a middle, a chapters or scene (and once, an entire ms.) You’re right, Lisa, there is this impulse to hang on to them, to try to resurrect them or put a wig on them and pass then off as new. But once divorce becomes inevitable, it’s the only real choice, and once it’s done, there’s an enormous sense of lightness. It takes time for me to get old story lines out of my head. I think I even used the term ‘divorce’ with regard to this process. Thanks for another great post!
When I wrote the third book in my MG series, I knew something wasn’t right, but I kept going. My editor came back with comments and while I tried to fix things I knew in my heart the story wasn’t working and no amount of edits would save it. I trashed the whole book and started over. It was painful, but necessary. I wrote a completely different book I like much better. You have to trust your gut. It knows when something isn’t working and when something is. It’s just scary to take that leap and hit delete.
Hello Lisa.
If you aren’t a conscious George Lakoff fan, you’re one in spirit. He’s a cognitive linguist, and Lakoff applies the idea of “framing” mostly to politics. Create the frame for an issue, and you define the debate. Remember the proposal to establish committees of physicians who would advise patients on end-of-life options? Opponents dubbed the committees “death panels,” and quickly torpedoed whatever legitimate meaning the proposal had. That term framed all future discussion.
Or the idea of repetition. Repeat something often enough–even if it’s wrong or dishonest–and it takes on legitimacy. You say, correctly, that for writers, “the real trouble starts when they double down, trying to fix the unfixable” in their novels. Tell me that doesn’t have the ring of truth when applied to all of us, especially to politicians whose First Commandment is to never admit to being wrong.
But as writers, we’re liable to do the very same thing. How could all this investment in sweat equity be wrong? How could I soldier on all this time, and be wrong?
For me, the only practical way to re-frame the debate is by teaming up with a reliable, savvy editor. But even then, it’s something of a crap shoot. Editors are human, and so they also develop ongoing frames of reference by which to offer advice.
So, what am I saying? I guess just that the writer must learn how to more or less get it right the first time, knowing that lots of backing and filling will be needed later. The writer is framing the discussion of her story, building it more solidly with each day spent writing. What could be more legitimate than something read to oneself over and over again? Better get it as right as possible the first time. Or work with a very smart editor you can trust.
P.S. I can’t understand how or why the word “suck” has so firmly established itself in essays and comments. Yes, I can: the kids who used the term are now adults–but I’ve decided to let this go.
I think if it as a miscarriage. I have a tidy mind, like with unfinished knitted things, I write “the end” and file it under “attend to before I die.” Start again. ABK akloman.aol.com
“You can’t insert story logic from the outside in.”
I have no trouble killing darlings. If it’s not working, it goes. It gets incinerated, its ashes mixed into the concrete of a highway overpass being erected in the marshlands of New Jersey.
That way there isn’t even a trace of the darling’s DNA.
What I’m less good at it looking forward to the new space I’ve created, celebrating the arrival of something better even before it has arrived. I worry what will fill the void in the manuscript. That slows me down.
When the better scene arrives it is usually because I’ve relaxed. It’s partly a matter of going inside characters to discover what I missed or failed to ask about sooner, but it’s also a matter of time.
Example: A secondary character in my WIP was my protagonist’s cardboard buddy. He had to come alive, but how? I asked the right questions. What do you want? What bugs you about your best bud, the protagonist?
Nothing. Nada. Couldn’t get what I needed. After a time a different question occurred to me: Mr. Best Friend, what is it that you want *from Mr. Protagonist*?
Bingo. The floodgates opened. Mr. BF became Mr. P’s business partner and gadfly. Friction arose, but the loving kind, the kind that irritates the most because someone else cares.
What was it that I let go? I think that’s the wrong question. The better question is, what did I resist embracing and drawing closer? What held me back was not change, not excision, not the sharp point of a blue pencil.
What I was resisting was the hurt in Mr. P’s heart, which needed a friend caring enough to demolish the fragile concrete highway flying over Mr. P’s messy, emotional swamp.
What I needed to do was not let it go but hold on. I just needed to know what to hold on *to*, what to let in, what to welcome. Thus (deep breath) I disagree with you, Lisa.
What we need is not to let something go, but to let something in.
I had a blaze of inspiration for a story, wrote it, reveled in it, sat back and realized that it was off. The central character had outgrown the premise. So I tore out the bad stuff and rewrote and reshaped. And I did it again and again. It was exhilarating (and I was a lot younger). I actually had an agent handling it, until I terminated the contract and requested the manuscript back. But that’s another story, occurring before Pred-Ed provided red flags for innocent writers.
Fifteen years later I opened the bits and pieces, frowned and saw that there was a germ of a good story there, and I went with it. The book is published now, and I think it is one of my very best. I certainly learned from the experience.
And like someone above me said, I write smarter now.
I dumped an entire manuscript I’d worked on for three years. It was perfect. It had two protagonists, each of whom told their side of a story in first person. Think Rashomon. It had conflict. It had pain and suffering. And it sucked.
I joined a writing group at about the fourth year point, after I’d accumulated dozens of rejections from agent. Two writers whom I didn’t know very well took the ms and eviscerated it. I mean totally gutted it.
I whimpered. I wailed. I called them all sorts of bad names in private. Then one morning about 3 am a voice shouted me awake: “It’s my story, dammit. Tell it my way.” Well, yes, ma’am. I regrouped, changed the voice to a minor character and am now finishing the third book in the series.
I’m so glad the voice was disembodied, because I think Mad Max might have gotten physically violent had I not followed her demand.
Great stuff, Lisa – it falls in line with something I picked up from a famous white-bearded philosopher who taught us that we need to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em.
It definitely falls under the easier-said-than-done category, but I agree that it’s an important discipline to exercise. Sometimes a piece of writing – or an idea for a story – just doesn’t work.
My most recent example was at a workshop led by our own Donald Maass. He asked the audience to answer a series of deep and probing questions about our WIPs. By the end of the session, I had realized my book idea lacked the emotional depth to be viable. The amazing thing was that in a matter of hours I learned a lesson I’d been oblivious to for months. But it’s not that Donald told me the idea didn’t work – my own critical thinking did, prompted by the mental exercises he was putting us through.
Since that eye-opening moment, I’ve worked to establish my own “sniff test” on the viability of my ideas. It’s not foolproof, but it helps insert some objectivity into the incredibly challenging task of judging one’s own work. Bottom line, it helps me know when to walk away from a manuscript – and when to run.
I love the idea of Don helping enhance your sniff test. A while back, he asked what I was working on, and so I told him. The expression on his face let me know I either needed a new idea or I needed to dig a whole lot deeper into the one I was considering.
I hereby move that we henceforth refer to Don as Dr. Sniff. All in favor…?
David, Dr. Sniff is definitely good.
But is it as good as . . .
wait for it . . .
Critical Maass?
Mr. Sniff? Uh, hmm. I’m not sure Critical Maass is more complimentary, though it is better than that list serve for those who’ve taken my workshops, Maass Destruction.
Gotta work on my image, clearly.
Oh, yes, I relate. What’s funny though is that sometimes a bit of a story from long ago fits perfectly into a new story. Sometimes we simply do not have all the pieces we need to write a fleshed out story, and we must be patient. I figure if I keep writing, I’ll keep getting better, have fewer false starts, know when to throw out something, and when to keep at it. Your articles are always so helpful and timely. Thank you.
Very helpful article, Lisa, and I agree with your reasoning as to why we find it so hard to let go of sections of a book that might not be working. I have always struggled with cutting the words, or paragraphs, or, gasp, a whole chapter. But more recently as I have worked with a few good developmental editors, I have learned the benefits of a few well-placed snips.
Hi, Lisa:
I share your disdain for the all-too-typical use of the phrase in question. It’s a bumper sticker slogan for denial.
I’m referring a student to you, with the hope that she reads the very positive and encouraging elements as well as the realistic ones. Writing is rewriting, and sometimes there’s just more to do than you think, or would like to admit.
I had to redo my entire last novel because I had misunderstood my two main characters in fundamental ways, and the story that resulted was exactly a series of scenes focusing on exterior action but not deeper yearning. Despite a lot of nice writing, it just didn’t connect the way it should.
That was my fifth novel. I should know what I’m doing, right? (Sigh …)
There’s no disgrace in this form of letting go. This kind is the exact opposite of denial.
Wonderful post, as always. Thanks.
Super great post Lisa … as always.
I’m resonating with:
“Because here’s the thing: you can’t insert story logic from the outside in. The truth is that the minute a writer digs into the kind of internal story logic that could power their premise all the way to the end, it almost always renders moot everything they’ve already written.”
That’s why I had to throw away the third draft of a novel I was so proud of. The driving force of my protagonist needed to be there on page one… and as he evolved … the evolving force had to carry throughout the rest of the novel with him. Anytime I try to work from the “outside in” or do that ‘reverse engineering’ thing, it ALWAYS shows up on the page. There’s no faking this stuff and no easy way out. The worst of it is: The easier the scene and the happier I was writing it, the worse it was bound to be. Writing logically and from the inside out is hard … very hard, which leads into:
“You learned what not to do, which is enormously useful. And because you made this difficult decision – to let the draft go without letting your commitment to the story go — now you’re open to moving forward on a road that might get you to the story you want to tell. That’s an even bigger success.”
All of the hard work and throwing a whole novel basically in the trash was the best thing I ever did (as if I had a choice). Thanks for sharing your wisdom with all of us – I so gulped down the Kool-Aid.
I love you both. Utterly. OTH, so not my problem. Could it be that we get to a certain point in our writing and the ‘preciousness’ just plain falls off?
Re posted this to my online crit group. Totally on point, despite not me.
Thank you both, for all you do!
I pitched four full manuscripts (and a genre) before I found what worked for me. No lie.
Four times I wrote, edited, polished through multiple drafts, and queried – (while starting the next project), and four times I met rejection after rejection, until I despaired of ever finding an agent and a publishing deal. Then, the fifth time, I decided to write the mystery that jumped into my head…and my publisher will be releasing the fourth novel in my series this summer (and just contracted for the fifth one for next year).
Had I not been able to let those first four manuscripts go, I never would have learned that my real talents lie in writing mystery. Each of those trunk novels taught me important lessons about writing, and about myself as a writer–I couldn’t have written what I write now if I hadn’t walked that road…but I also couldn’t be the writer I am now if I hadn’t had the strength to let them go.
Thank you for a fantastic article and a great reminder.
Like Keith, I realized while working through an exercise that I needed to change some fundamental things in my WIP that would mean a total rewrite. But you’re right: once I stopped saying “No, I can’t”, I felt this huge release. That feeling of liberation kept my spirits up when it came to picking through the rubble to see if anything could be salvaged.