How to Fix a Broken Story (Writing Advice) 

I'm starting to think you have the super power to pop up in the right time 😨

Something I discovered: if you can always abandon a story that doesn’t work but recycle the elements that you like, as they might work in another story. I once stated writing a novel that was going nowhere: the plot didn't work, too many contrived coincidences, too linear, too anecdotal, no motivation for the villains, etc. I abandoned it, but years later I used the same villains for a story with a plot that got legs.

"write the islands" is a good way to describe what I've been doing - you could say right now I'm building bridges between those islands

Oh. I’m glad this time you said “Get ready” because last time I wasn’t ready.

One trick I'm trying now is when juggling multiple characters, i assigned a font color to each one. Now I have a visual representation of the different character arcs so I can see where they are. I like the diagrams for plot points, so this is a good visual aid for keeping your many protagonists organized.

Just wanted to say I love your content! I grew up as one of those "Jock" type guys, and most people wouldn't have pegged me for a writer. However, your videos gave me the confidence to explore writing finally! It's been so rewarding, and your videos have been an amazing tool to help me learn since I've just started!

I've done step 4 to an entire two stories once. I had a story with a decent idea but a ton of plot holes, and it lost structure by the end, and another story that had not much to it. So I combined the two, and with a bit more work, fixed all my plot holes, gave more substance to the story, and came out on the other side better because of it.

"We hate failure, it's shameful. It sucks." That made me laugh out loud. I've said it before, but I like your videos a lot Brandon.

I'm definitely the "I have several key scenes I want in the story and getting to them is something I figure out as I go" type of writer, because even when I have scenes written out when it comes time to draw the pages I'll end up doing further edits. Also I tried planning out an entire book before drawing it and ended up never drawing it, wasted years of prep work doing that. In my first book (which I'm drawing the epilogue of now) I had the hardest time figuring out how to get the characters from one key scene to another, and I'm still not entirely happy with how I did some of those, but that's what the revision process is for when I prep it for a print edition. Certain things could have been stronger but overall I'm proud of the result. One thing I DID notice halfway through was that the hero seemed to be reacting to events happening to her, rather than causing things to happen in the story, but then I realized that every time she DID try being proactive it ended up making things worse so that became a theme, until the climax where her being proactive is what ended up solving the conflict so it kinda became accidental character growth. More of my "writing things in-progress" creative style. The sequel is still just in "basic story idea" stages but I'm definitely going to take more care in making the plot work. I think the fact that I know it's gonna be around 200 pages (unlike the first book, which I hadn't planned on being a long story and it just snowballed) will help. I also have definite plans for things that need to happen in it. The thing I need to fix the most in it is how the heroes will defeat the villain because I may have designed her to be *too* strong.

For me, the most important thing has been to write some stories without the intention of finishing them. Just writing a short scene, a dialogue, an interesting battle or whatever, just to try it out. It helps me get past writer's block as well and takes the pressure off. I think that keeping writing interesting and fun has been vital for me to keep at it. If that means I suddenly sit down and write a random horror scene that has no connection to any of my projects, that is fine. Your brain can easily handle multiple tasks, and in fact it helps see the other stuff you are working on in a new light. I also think it's important to try different writing styles. If you always prefer third person as the default, try first person for a short story and so on. Keeping it fresh has been the key for me to keep enjoying my hobby of writing.

"Writing the islands" is exactly how I write. I never write linearly--not storytelling-wise, just purely from a "this is how my scattered brain operates" kind of way. I'm just working on my novel's most important scenes right now, and I'll figure out the rest later. 😅

The most important thing to remember is that you're working with clay, not stone. Everything can be changed and a lot of the time, everything needs to be changed. If you're too hung up on what you've already written and can't let go of it, you'll just keep moving parts around that just don't work. Break those parts, recreate them, understand them, then you can start assembling them again. Nothing kills progress as much as clinging to what you've already done just because it's there.

I don't view this as failure, it's just part of the process, like every draft. Thanks Brandon, these are great tips, I'll be using today!

I ALWAYS have a problem with the characters having nothing to do. I have the overarching theme for their arcs, but i just don't know what those arcs should be. I am also terrible at writing a subplot. Everything is always straightforward and lacks any depth. I'm not gonna beat myself to it since i am literally just a fresh amateur writer, but man, these problems suck.

My first novel - lots of rejections. And rightly so. The story was total crap, but I learned a lot in the process. 2nd - still not good but able to fix it - and eventually had a publisher agree to take it on. 3rd - a publisher agreed to take it, but I couldn't accept their recommended changes - they had some good points regarding the flaws of my story, so I thanked them, declined their offer, and set out to rewrite huge parts of it. 4th - a prequel to my 3rd that will help fix some of the issues. And these 4 are only my "complete" novels. Most of the time you don't even have to write the whole book to know if it'll work or not. I have a few I didn't even bother to finish because I realized that I could never pull it off as I intended. But it's not time wasted. It's great practice. And you might be able to salvage some parts. I've been able to use scraps from failed stories in other novels, like characters, plot twists, setting, a certain angle to a conflict - stuff like that. Even if your story looks like a complete disaster - if the initial idea is good, don't despair. Don't be afraid to make major changes - try stuff - see what happens. If at first you don´t succeed: rewrite! rewrite! rewrite!

This video showed up at a perfect time. I've finished the Rough Draft and have been waffling on rewriting it, but that was before learning about the other 6 steps.

This is such perfect timing! Thank you :D

Thanks for another *very* helpful video, Brandon! Re Point #7 ("Rewrite From Scratch"), I hesitate to call the first draft a "failure" or "mistake." Could be more motivating to think of it as a stepping stone. Thanks again, and keep up the great work!

One thing id love to see a video on is analysis of success stories that drastically strayed from the story arc structure or heroes journey blueprint. It seems like nowadays its mandatory to follow these blueprints but that mentality seems to clash with my creativity bone. There must be examples out there.

This write the islands thing seems very valuable. You mentioned something similar before as well, 6 best scenes or something. I was for long stuck with my story, as, even though I didnt try to write it linearly chronologically, my brain wanted to do it in some (unknown to me) structured way, and nothing just progressed. Now ive adapted that islandish way of thinking and finally made some progress. Thanks for the great content thst you keep putting up!

Oh boy have I ever embraced failure as part of the process. I've written the whole thing from scratch at least a dozen times trying to get the story right. One day, I'll either get it right or I'll have learned via the process that I shouldn't try to write any story ever and just give up.

I just ordered entry wounds from my local bookstore. Thanks so much for all your incredible advice

Combining ideas is such a great tip imho. I've done that a bunch over the years. :)

this is so timely , I intend to take the NaNo Wri 50k word writing challenge next month. I've already thought of rewriting my entire novel from scratch, and you just helped a lot

Great video, as always! I think it is important to consider whether your story is just too complex for you to write at your current level. You might be starting too big. I spent nearly 15 years with a story that was going to be multiple books of fantasy, symbolism, and deep character development. It was packed full of these dream like scenes that all had to be unique, bizarre, and contain puzzles that were symbolic of the various pitfalls of humanity. I can't fit into a single comment how complicated my idea was and the number of obstacles I encountered. I felt so stuck and overwhelmed that I would stop writing for years at a time then return and redo it all. Finally, I had to admit defeat and shelve the idea. I need to get better at the foundational skills of writing and storytelling without an overly complex story plan on top of it all. I need to figure out my own writing style, habits, and what works for me on a small scale before I apply it on a larger scale. So I spent a year trying to find inspiration for a new idea and am now a few months into writing a novel. Just a single, simple fantasy novel. I'm irritated at myself for spending so much of my life working towards something that had to be abandoned. But who knows, maybe I'll return to it when I am more experienced. This comment is a warning to all you stubborn perfectionists out there who have a big idea and want it to be both your first story and your magnum opus. Trust me. No one is naturally gifted enough that they don't require practice to reach their full potential. You are doing your magnum opus a disservice by trying to force it too early.

Thanks for the vid. Good points were made here. One piece of advice I've heard from another author on RU-vid(Natalia Leigh) was to condence the timespan of a story and it actually made me realise how stretched all events were. I also see that my plot is meandring and many side plotlines have to take place to push the main one forward. So basically I fight with chaos in my novel.

I have two notes sections on my phone that I'm constantly revisiting. "Graveyard" and "Struggle Session" 😂 Struggle Session is where I literally have a conversation with myself about someone that isn't working. What do I like, why isn't it working, can I change it, etc. If something can't be salvaged, it goes to the Graveyard. However, sometimes I'm writing a scene/chapter and I can't quite figure out what should happen next or how I want to get a certain idea across. That's when I take a stroll through the Graveyard and see if there is something in there that can be repurposed. If nothing else, it usually helps spark my imagination again. Improvement is a constant process! You have to get comfortable with letting some ideas go, even if you really love them!

I always learn something from your videos, but this one in particular is exactly what I need. I've been struggling with the same story off and on since 2009... maybe one of these suggestions will be what I need to either fix it or let it go!

What I want to work on is the making the dialogue more natural and I do think I’ve gotten better at it! I’m rereading scripts and I can see mistakes now like “This character wouldn’t say this”, “This line doesn’t fit the mood” or “No human would say this right out”. (I would also like to request another Good vs Bad Dialogue video! They really helped and it was also that video that let me find your channel! Or maybe a video on how to show information in scene without saying it outright? Or how to discreetly slip information into a scene) Most of the time for my dialogue, theres information I want to tell/show in a scene but just saying it doesn’t work. I either try to show the information instead or try to change the environment so it would make sense to say something. Like a character is sick of pretending just to make her family happy but she’s also too dutiful to say it. I just had her smiling in a mirror, at first just to check her hair and makeup, but the smile slowly drops to a frown. But the second there’s a knock on the door the smile returns like nothing happened. It shows that even though she’s tried, she’s still committed to the act. Another character is competitive but still likes to play it cool. instead of saying that, we see it and the other character hear it when she gets pretty heated after losing 10 rounds in a game. She yells “Are you cheating???” once her cool confident act finally breaks. I’m pretty proud of myself for this scene this I recently reworked. It was just going to be dialogue between 2 characters early in the morning but I added a breakfast scene. One character shows up with I changed the story the character now often goes to his friend’s house in the morning to eat breakfast together. I wanted to show that this was a common occurrence without saying “Hey dude, what’s for breakfast today?” because it sounded freeloady and that character came over to discuss something important. That line was in character but “Can we have toast today? Also I got a letter and I need you to sit down before I read it to you…” also kinda ruined the mood. So I changed it so that as they talked while they preparing a quick breakfast, the friend is getting bread and the first character knows where everything is (plates and cups) but he also brought over honey for the meal. I also had the character only pour honey he brought only onto the friend’s toast because I thought it showed that they knew each other well enough to know each others’ food preference and the friend has a sweet tooth. The sweet tooth thing does come up again a lot in the story so this was a bit for a first hint. Also, this wasn’t states but the first character lives in the woods and has some beehives, so him bring honey is another little hint that comes up later.

One trick I did that helped me finish a story was that I changed the main character so I can explore the story with a different POV. It's under rewriting the whole story. thank you for another helpful and very timely video.

I love "Take the Brandon forgiveness" :)

Love the videos, keep em coming!! Im writing a fantasy novel i hope to expand into a full trilogy and your advice always helps. Nearly halfway done and havent had any of these problems yet. Hope it stays that way🎉

My problem with my reboot is I always see mistakes and constantly rewriting it on and on. I rewrited all story once and now I'm doing it again. I want It to be perfect and that's my bigest issue.

This was a GODSEND rn, thank you so much 🙏🙏🙏

Imagine yourself in your story: what do you see, what do you hear, what do you smell? Also, try to immerse yourself in your characters and try to understand them. This helps with shaping their personalities. Lastly, everything takes time! You don't have to get everything right/done at the start! Just like it takes time for a plant to grow, it takes time for your ideas (and ultimately) to grow and come to fruition!

Hey Brandon, thanks for this video. This is actually a topic I didn't think I wanted but I needed nonetheless. I'm not sure if you did a video like this before and I missed it but can you do a video on how to end a story with different endings. For example: some sci-fi blockbusters have chaotic, action-packed endings while some endings have emotion in there that concludes it without the need for action. I'm doing a story right now (on final chapter) that follows a detective and a villain having a serious, even hostile conversation in the end about very personal things and I would like to know how to end it without action. Hope all that made sense

What's the #1 thing you need to improve in your current Work-In-Progress? Let us know!

Great advice.

This is some killer advice right here!

Really good advice! Thanks

Just last night I watched a video on why a song of ice and fire is unfinishable and some of the fatal flaws that happened in that series. And now I start my morning with this one, and you hit on a lot of the same points. Your timing is impeccable 😂

Biggest thing I need to improve is how I hit my love genre obligatory moments while preparing for the rest of the series. I want my first book to stand alone as a good story, and it's prescriptive regarding trust, loyalty, tribes etc. I have a side plot that will build in the rest of the series, and I want to make sure it supports the core idea.

I need to start writing islands. I’m so wedded to the idea of writing everything chronologically that I never get to the cool bits.

I have the tendency to write certain scenes that I envisioned happening. It can change when the story reaches that point but I've learned the necessity for it the hard way. I had a story where I imagined a scene, kept thinking about it, waiting to reach that point. When I did, I was tired of it already and had no mood to write, so I just cut it down to a simpler version. Writing down scenes serve as a setup like Brandon said but it also progresses the story and you have the excitement of writing and later adjusting it, rather than waiting qnd let it rot in your brain.

My current WIP is a rough draft and I just need to do the normal thing for the second draft, go little by little and chop all the stuff that makes no sense then add back in some emotions and little character moments so these people feel real.

Thank you Brandon, you are my go-to for writing help. My story is broken, it's halfway through the 2nd draft and it is so hard to keep writing and rewriting and redrafting. I'm not a real writer and ne er wanted to be one. But I've come this far. What annoys me is that if this 2nd draft doesn't work after the 3rd draft I may not have a book at all, but books 2 & 3 are going well and I'd like to write those!!

Thanks, this was helpful

This video dropped at the right time!!

Thanks ❤❤

03:42 "If you can't forgive yourself, accept my forgiveness" damn it hit me. You are a mentor to me and I'm sure to many others here and you didn't have to say that but you did. Just shows how you really are passionate about what you are doing and wants to see us write and finish our stories. All my respect goes to you sir 🫡

I love you Brandon and I thank you for your forgiveness.

After looking at my fanfiction story, I realize that the #1 thing I need to improve in my current W.I.P is the side characters. So far, I haven't given them much development, so, I'm thinking about separating what's working with my characters and what is not working with them.

Another great video. So I followed one of your suggestions and been writing my story without dialogue. It’s been helping actually. No where near finished but it’s fun tho. Can’t wait until your next video and when do my idea on rogues gallery 😏

Thanks for your precise, well-paced advice, assuming this carries over to your prose, guess I'll have to buy a book to find out.

My current WIP is So Stuck it's driving me mad. But I recently figured out /why/ it wasn't working. Does anyone else become so alert and hyper-critical that suddenly you think everything you write is weak and seethrough?

#1 thing I need to improve in my current WIP is the main character, unfortunately. I have strong feelings about including the scene that gives the character their “wound” as a major event in the fictive present rather than leaving it in flashback, but that leaves me with these sort of … blank slates at the beginning. It’s challenging.

I'm currently in the rewriting phase of a story I've been writing for about 15 years. About 10 years ago I ran away from the story and deleted everything, but I could never forget the story because it played such a pivotal part in my mindset as a youth. Just a couple years ago I started getting back into it, and I actually found some documents that I missed when I deleted everything. Although there are some details I wish I could have back (the elfin alphabet for example), having nothing to work from but my memories has been an opportunity to shine fresh light on the story and be more intentional with themes I unknowingly eluded to and experiences my own life has seen. There are some concepts I forgot about from the earliest version, which are really cool, but do not fit into how the story evolved. So those parts remain as fascinating relics of the story that has been my life's work.

Could you explain the difference between a twist and a payoff

I think my big argument at the midpoint that leads to the breakup needs more work. It doesn't feel like my love interest did enough to get broken up with. So I'm currently trying to think of some ways to make what he did worse.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to write "massive" fantasy saga that will be remembered, and at the same time, I used a lot of obvious, fairytale-ish, overused tropes (like: extremaly honorable knight, old mage, greedy noble etc.). Now I'm fixing it. I made it more humble, not so "amazing", changed the tropes so they would fix the plot more. Example: before change, one character was extremaly honorable, but it was his ONLY trait (he simply lacked depth). Also I think, sometimes obvious little things can be missing, like a characted doing sth they shouldn't be capable of (e.g. randomly able to speak foreign language) or doing sth not how they ussualy would (actions not fitting their character, and I don't mean single mistake/anger based act, but repeated).

Thanks for the post. Highly useful tips as always. I recently had beta readers critique my fifty work, currently in its fourth revision, and they independently came back to me saying that I had written two stories in one volume. I'm still having trouble seeing what they see, but I've decided to write a 'prequel' novel and turn it into a duology. A lot more work, but I'm hopeful it will bear fruit. Thanks again.

I love the haunted gun concept. Thanks for all of the great content!

Bro has cracked the algorithm by just giving ___ steps to do ____ best yt trick.

Thanks!

About #1, some people gripe about superhero origins in the movies, and why do we need to see any of that when we could just get to the action. Thing is, if you don't sell the audience on why the protagonist would adopt a secret identity and risk their life on a volunteer basis, the movie's going to feel off. The movie needs to show the motivation. Maybe we don't need to see Batman's or Spider-Man's origin every time, because we all know what drives them by now. But you do want to see it with, say, Captain America or Superman or Green Lantern, otherwise it's just a power fantasy. Movies where they didn't really sell the audience, like "Daredevil", are ones that never resonate with audiences: sure we saw how Matt Murdock got his powers, but they never really sold us on why operating as Daredevil is the only thing that makes sense for him. We all fell in love with Steve Rogers even before he left basic training. I'd say he won us all over by jumping on that grenade, if indeed we hadn't been won over already. Now imagine how empty a character Cap would have seemed if they'd just started with him punching Hydra agents.

Thanks for the Brandon-forgiveness 😂 That one cheered me up on a depressing night.

I have been working on my Novels for years and I've added so much and trying to make a web of people and places related one another, My Story is going to be the next greatest story, It's quite Special, I'll be the next but thing

The only reason i knew my story was broken was because of reason 3 and when you mentioned it and i started thinking of my story i was like "thats me rigjt now" but im glad you gave advice because now i know what i should do and i really loved the core idea piece of advice you are literally so helpful!!!😊

Thanks

I'm working on a story with someone who has a uniquely disfunctional home life and what could be an ordinary and possibly enjoyable life in high school. I know what I want to have happen in all of it, but I'm having trouble making the school life interesting in a way that resonates with the character.

Personally the biggest struggle for me is the best POV to use for the story. 1st person and 3rd person have so many pros and cons that I end up going back to trying to figure out which works best.

My biggest weak point is i have to ALWAYS keep vigil for my characters to not slip out of their characters... that's perhaps the hardest part...

I would like to give my story a more dramatic ending. I'm not unhappy with it, but I want to make my audience cry.

I'm currently writing a thriller and I believe the biggest issue currently is the plot device. I couldn't really figure it out yet

Ath 3.45, thank you for your forgivness. Also, thank-you for writing Bad-parts, I've read it now and it was good.

I think you should do something on tropes and cliches

I loveeee your videos so muchhh 😭😭😭

Brandon why does it feel like your writing advice videos are inadvertently narrating my writing journey hahaha

I haven’t watched the video yet, but I want to thank you in advance because I’ve been depressed for several days after realizing that the manuscript I’ve been working on since I was 15 and was hoping to finally publish this year is utterly broken. Also, what a coincidence that you posted this right after I finished bingeing a bunch of your older videos!

Hey Brandon! Can you do a video on how to pitch your story to a publisher? I'm working on a graphic novel with heavy themes and Christian imagery, and I want to figure out the best way to frame it in a pitch, without boring the publisher lol!

Would love advice on short stories

Brandon please do genre specific videos for sci-fi.

I'm having to rewrite something I've spent ages on. It sucks but after a lot of feedback I'm going to have to murder a darling. One subplot I love, but it's taking away from the story. It's giving the story an "and then" structure when it needs a tighter, pacier "because". So I'm going to have to move that plot to a future episode and find ways to add more meat to the main story.

''The greatest teacher, failure is''

you rock Brandon. Up to 10,000 words and chipping away. number one thing i need to work on in my w.i.p. is text between dialogue. I find it tempting to just dialogue away nonstop but i know it's just lazy writing.

When the filter can’t hide you were sleeping before shooting

My mother tells the story of when she was in college, and she lost an English paper that she had already finished (typed!). She re-wrote the entire thing, and it was the only A she got on an English paper in college. I did a similar thing when I was in college. I had written an English paper, and it was technically fine, but hella boring. So I deleted it, and re-wrote it, and got a 97.

Luckily I don’t think my WIP is broken. It definitely needs some major tweaks, though. My main issue right now is I’ve written way too much back story and kind of haven’t gotten around to writing much of the actual plot. I think a lot of this is because it’s my first time ever actually trying to write a novel and I didn’t know if I could write something that long. Well, it turns out I can! Somehow I overcompensated and actually ended up over-writing. Now I have to cut out a lot of unimportant stuff/meaningless scenes and write more of the actual meat to the story. I always had a loose plot in mind but my ideas have been constantly evolving as I’ve been writing, so I find it hard to make an exact outline and stick to it.

In my 30,000 word novella, i am currently working on trying to fix my protagonist's false misbelief that they believe throughout the book. I have their desire and fears down (she, since she is a female protagonist, a princess, wants to be a powerful warrior, but is not allowed to by her king father, since she is meant to be future queen, and girls are not allowed to be warriors in the book's setting). I am trying to figure out the last aspect of this, their core misbelief The protagonist is supposed to give into, and embrace their false misbelief, since it is meant to be a negative character arc.

6: "Write the Islands" I've actually done this for a different reason. Like, I'm so caught-up in an upcoming highlight scene and it's gonna be so good... But I'm not there yet, and the highlight keeps going around in my head so I can't focus on writing the part I'm at so I get get there. I had to write the highlight scene ahead of time to clear my head of it and do the work. The same solution to a different problem. Neat, right?

My biggest issue is plot/story. I have a general idea worked out, I have a world worked out and I have characters who fit into the world and central idea. I just need to tie it together with a solid story/plot. I have already written my first draft but its too disjointed. Im gonna cut some ideas, wich I might use for later novels, while im now in the process of thinking of new plot points wich fit better with characters and theme.

can u make a video on how to write a training scene (like where a character teaches another character how to use their superpowers?)

Can you make video on how to write plot or plot structure.

Stuck on plot/structure. I need to do my homework!

I'd love to see how youd go about fixing the dialogue with neflix avatar the last airbender, i love the show but i know the dialogue us pretty bad but it feels like something I'd write.

It's long. My current Work in progress is long. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, but I'm writing it as a graphic novel. As it stands, the main character goes from a college student to almost a mage to rebel leader to one of the people at the head of the force that is trying to stop the world from devolving into chaos when the evil empire inevitably falls.

One thing I should improve is the length of my story. I'm writing a script for a comic book and I feel like the story is a little short. There are 20 illustrated pages but reading it, it seems like the story goes by too fast. The problem is that I'm satisfied with the ending. Should I add more to the rising conflict?

Brandon, I try to use Blake Snyder's beat sheet as a guide because I find it helps me with story structure, but I'm having a hard part rationalizing his second act "fun and games" segment were my story is really more of a horror/thriller type in the vein of Alien. What I'm struggling with is, is that in my story, the "fun and games" is when really bad things start to happen. Am I missing the mark here?

My #1 thing to improve is actually writing my first draft from start to finish 😅

Question: do you plan on doing a video on how to make a comedic story serious without it coming off as forced or inconsistent? Because I feel like the shows “The Legend of Vox Machina” and “Red vs Blue” (until season 15) do it really well, while others don’t.