Seven Degrees Left of Center

Letting It Soak

There's this thing that happens with stories. You get an idea and you're supposed to let it sit for a while, right? Let it marinate. Let it develop complexity. Let the story soak.

But here's what they don't always tell you: if you let it soak too long, it dissolves.

I've done this more times than I want to admit. I'll get an idea that feels urgent, that makes my fingers itch to write, but I'll think, no, not yet. Let it develop. So I carry it around turning it over in my mind, imagining scenes, working out backstories. And somewhere in all that thinking, the story loses its shape. What started as something I had to write becomes something I'm supposed to write.

The emotional truth gets intellectualized into nothing. The clarity dissolves into overthinking. And the longer an idea sits, the more time I have to find reasons not to write it.

But rush it too soon and you get something shallow a first thought instead of a real insight.

So there's this sweet spot when the story has absorbed enough of your subconscious to be interesting but hasn't sat so long that it's lost its bones. I think you just have to learn to recognize the difference between an idea that's developing and an idea that's decomposing. One pulls you toward the page. The other lets you keep finding reasons to wait.

Maybe the real skill isn't knowing when to start writing. Maybe it's knowing when not to wait any longer.