Writing often happens in loops.
This is a record of looping and circling the same story for years.
It is, by no means, a writing guide. I’m documenting the uncertainty, the mess, and how I slowly understood my process.
I started a sci-fi script story in 2014.
By 2017, I thought I was close to finishing it.
I wasn’t.
But I didn’t know that, then.
In the years that followed, I returned to it in fragments; rewriting, rethinking, and trying to understand what the story actually was.
I had feedback on the finished draft from various sources; friends, family, mentors, screenwriting competitions.
I thought that would all help me settle with it.
It didn’t.
And I didn’t know why, then
I eventually put the final draft aside in 2021, to bring it out of stasis… someday.
Now, 5 years later, I return to some reflections on the process and lessons learned.
2017, early July – Writing Journey part 1
After months of writing the actual script, the task shifted: I needed a version of the script that was readable, coherent enough to submit to a competition..I had no idea how and where to start, so I went back to the outline. It seemed to be the logical place, right? If the outline and the script didn’t match, then everything else would be unstable. (Something I learned from academic writing.)
So I compared them. Adjusted them. Filled in gaps where I could.
And in doing that, I uncovered more gaps. Some big structural ones too: About sequence. About what happens when. About how and when characters reveal what they know. About whether the story actually makes sense beyond individual scenes….urgh!
That’s when the process shifted from writing to dismantling.
I started going through the script line by line, identifying what needed to change or be removed, anything that weakened the logic or credibility of the story.
What I hadn’t expected was how disorienting this would feel.
Because as I read, two things kept happening at once:
– I could see ways to improve almost every part
– and at the same time, what was already there still seemed to work
Which left me stuck between two instincts:
Start again, or fix what exists.
What became obvious to me in the end was that I was trying to solve the wrong problem: to fix the script rather than reconnect with why it existed.
So I stepped back.
I NEEDED TO RETURN TO THE CORE OF THE STORY: The reason I started writing this story in the first place; that initial drive, the original impulse, the birthplace where the story came from, the only place where decisions might actually mean something.
2017, late July – Writing Journey part 2
It’s a procrastination day, so far! Not the kind where nothing gets done, but the kind where everything seems productive yet nothing moves forward!
After analysing the script and outline in the previous stage, I turned my attention to a single scene, the one that defines the shift in my protagonist’s life after the inciting incident.
It felt important, so I treated it that way.
I mapped it carefully: where it sits in the structure, what it means, how it connects to the wider narrative, how it functions within acts and plot points.
And the more I mapped it, the more significant it seemed.
Which led to a bigger question:
Is this scene the centre of the story, or am I making it the centre because it’s the only part I currently understand?
That uncertainty is uncomfortable.
Because if it is the centre, then everything else needs to orbit around it.
And if it isn’t, then I might be building structure around something that only appears important.
Either way, there are gaps, particularly in the main storyline.
Character development feels thin in places.
And the narrative doesn’t yet fully support the weight I’m trying to give it.
At some point today, I had the urge to go back to the very beginning, the original 2014 version of the story, which was very different, and work backwards from the ending.
It feels more creative, less constrained than editing linearly.
Also, if I’m honest, it feels a lot easier, because rebuilding something is often easier than deciding what to keep, no?
I’m not sure if I have the time, or the will, to approach it this way.
But the fact that I’m drawn to it probably means something.
2019, February – Writing Journey part 3
It’s now over a year since journey part 2. The story hasn’t stayed still in that time. It’s shifted significantly.
The biggest change has been in the relationships between the main characters.
This seems to makes sense in terms of plot and logic: The dynamics are clearer, the motivations easier to track. The structure feels more stable.
But story-wise, I’m less certain.
Because every time relationships change, the emotional logic of the story also changes, not only the details. The tone shifts. The meaning shifts. Even the story direction can shift.
At times it feels like progress. The characters feel more real now, less like functions of the plot, more like people.
At other times, it feels like I’ve moved further away from what the story originally was.
A mentor once told me the script needed “more story.” I think I understand that note differently now. It wasn’t about adding more events, it was about deepening what’s already there so it’s meaningful.
And then there’s the bigger question that keeps resurfacing:
What if this was never meant to be a feature film?
The idea of it being a series, a six-parter, has come up before. I didn’t fully engage with it then. Now it feels harder to ignore, because it might actually fit the way the story wants to exist.
For now, though, the format matters less than clarity.
I have notes everywhere; versions, fragments, ideas that contradict each other. The next step is to gather them. To make sense of them. To decide what this story actually is, at least for now.
2019, October – Writing Journey part 4
Coming back to this after 8 months of believing I lost the story.
But I actually now realise that it wasn’t gone. It was just… waiting. Or maybe I was.
Either way, the distance changed something.
This time, instead of trying to expand the story, add more plot, more character, more complexity, I had a different thought:
What if the story isn’t too small? What if it’s just being told in the wrong way?
For a long time, I assumed the solution was to build more around it – breadth or depth. But looking at it now, it feels like the opposite might be true.
The story core might actually be more contained than I wanted it to be.
And instead of forcing it to grow, I could focus on what’s already there that I’m completely happy with: in this case, the ending. Twisting it. Letting it carry more weight.
That idea felt like a shift, a different way in.
Around the same time, I had conversations with someone in the industry, which helped reflect back the value of what I was trying to do.
That mattered more than I expected.
Because somewhere along the way, I’d started to assume that all this time, this circling, reworking, doubting, meant I wasn’t really progressing.
Looking back now, that’s not true.
Something has been developing. Just not in a straight line.
So now, the plan is simple: Go back to the notes. Explore the ending. Strip back the parts that over-explain.
One thing does feel clearer, though.
Much of the advice I’ve read on this and that, related to writing, was more distracting and disorienting than helpful.
Because it gave me more ways to rethink the work, instead of actually doing it.
And at this point, the only thing that seems likely to move this forward is the simplest one:
To keep writing.
And this time, to stay with it long enough to reach the end.
My takeaway:
After years of outlining, restructuring, and second-guessing, I realised the issue was never a lack of ideas or ability. But that, even across years, I kept asking variations of the same questions:
Do I start over or edit?
What is the story really about?
Is this even the right format?
The four documented writing journey parts highlighted an important lesson about creative writing for me personally that I’ve taken into other scripts and projects since then:
Creative problems can linger in the absence of commitment to one version long enough to finish it.
I don’t have a neat conclusion to this process. And it seems different for every project.
But I understand it, and my relationship to it, a little better than I did before.
And that feels like enough to keep going.
