Had to choose between a dragon and a sentient tree for my fantasy novel's mentor character

I picked the dragon because talking trees felt too overdone, but now my protagonist keeps getting roasted (literally) during training montages. Has anyone else picked the wrong mentor archetype and regretted it three chapters in?

3 comments

3 Comments

clairer7927d ago

write your way out of the mess, that's half the fun" - yeah I used to be totally on that train too. I'd be like "just push through, it'll fix itself" whenever I got stuck. But then I kept ending up with chapters that were technically written but felt dead inside, you know? Like I forced so many scenes with my MC and the tree mentor that the whole thing felt hollow and fake. Took me a while to realize that sometimes stepping back and rethinking the core idea is way smarter than just forcing words onto the page. Now I see that three chapters in is actually the perfect time to switch things up before you've wasted fifty thousand words on something that's not working.

luna_clark382mo ago

Three chapters in and you're already questioning it? Just write your way out of the mess, that's half the fun.

noah8802mo ago

Had a similar moment halfway through my first draft where I wanted to scrap everything. Just forced myself to write one more chapter and suddenly the whole thing clicked together. Sometimes you just gotta push through the rough patch and it sorts itself out lol.