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The week my writing group fell apart over a single prompt
We were supposed to write about a character finding a key, but two people got into a huge fight about whether it should open a literal door or a memory. It got so bad one person left the group for good. What's the most a prompt has ever divided your group?
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claire9586mo ago
It's like what phoenix549 said about the poodle clipping... people dig in their heels. I read a blog post once where a whole workshop argued if a "storm" in a story had to be weather or could be an argument. Half the group said it was cheating not to have rain. The other half got mad about limiting ideas. They never did the second draft.
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xena_fisher495mo ago
Funny how the fight over the word becomes the whole story, right? The real storm was in the room.
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phoenix5496mo ago
People get weirdly attached to their own way of seeing things. I see it all the time when clients argue over the "right" way to clip a poodle. The fight over a literal key versus a memory is the same thing, just with words instead of dog hair. It stops being about the work and becomes a battle over who's correct.
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