#TowOM: Adventures in Dungeon-Building and Story Editing

I’ve come to the conclusion that creativity is really all about learning how to edit and, unfortunately, that particular skill eludes me at the current moment. I can come up with hundreds of ideas for a story, but the story quickly becomes a narrative mess because I have such a difficult time cutting out unneeded elements and selecting the right pieces to tell the tale in my head.

I think part of the issue is that every story I’ve ever dreamed up has at least two versions—sometimes many, many more—and I want to tell them all. But since the story deals with the same characters, this isn’t always possible since some storylines may not be compatible with each other. Other times, the different versions create characters with personalities and motivations that stray too far from my original ideas about them.

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