As a child of the 80s, I got to witness the beginning and evolution of “instant” gratification. For example, I remember when we got our first VCR. No longer did my sister and I have to wait around for our favorite television programs to come on. All we had to do was insert a video tape and, assuming we had remembered to rewind it after the previous viewing, press play and watch our favorite shows any time we wanted!
I also recall our first microwave. It was big and metal and had huge dials on the front to control the cooking time. Suddenly, we had instant oatmeal! And instant hot chocolate! And instant soup! And instant burritos! And… well, you get the picture. The point is, if you needed something cooked in a hurry, all you had to do was pop it in this new metal contraption, spin a few dials, and receive piping hot food a few moments later.
Despite owning a microwave, sometimes my mom would make stew. She would put roast beef and carrots and potatoes and onions in a big crock pot and let it simmer for hours, sometimes all day. The smell would float out of the pot and somehow find its way to our nostrils. The longer it cooked, the better it smelled. I can almost taste the broth as I type these words.
In every single thing I have ever written in my entire life, the longer I let it sit, the better it got. Unfortunately unlike a stew it doesn’t get better by itself — sadly, you have to stir it — but the longer you let it sit, the better it will become.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come back to something I’ve previously written only to have glaring problems jump out at me. The longer I let them sit, the bigger the issues I notice are. If I let something sit for an hour or so, I’ll almost always find one or two typos. If I let something sit for a day or two, things like mixed tenses and subject/verb agreements will leap off the page at me. If I let something sit for several days, I may end up rewriting large portions of the plot.
While coming up with my list of story events, I had to also come up with my story’s conclusion. Here’s what I came up with the first time: at the end of the book, the female love interest chooses money over the protagonist. In an attempt to recover a large stash of stolen cash, she is killed by the antagonist while our protagonist is able to escape. Brilliant! I’m a genius! What a wonderful ending!
Two days later while walking around my neighborhood, I thought I heard the sound of screeching tires behind me. Turns out, the sound was that terrible idea, grinding to a halt! By the time I was done with my walk I had a much better idea — just when we think the love interest has betrayed our protagonist by choosing money over true love, she doubles back, conks the bad guy on the head with a drying pan, and escapes with the protagonist. The two of them live happily ever after and the antagonist gets a lump on the head.
Unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of sitting around for weeks on end plotting the perfect novel. As of tomorrow, if I write five days a week, I need to average roughly 650 words a day to meet my deadline. I’ve got a pretty good idea of where things are going and how I’m going to get my characters there. Now it’s time to get moving.