Hot take: that writing prompt about time loops is way harder to pull off than it looks

Spent 6 hours trying to write a 500 word loop story where each cycle added a single new detail and ended up with a mess of contradictions that took me 3 more hours to untangle, has anyone else found that keeping track of consecutive timelines is a nightmare or am I just overcomplicating it?

2 comments

2 Comments

andrew9161mo ago

Not everything needs to be a literary puzzle, man. Just write the story and move on.

danieltaylor1mo ago

Six hours on a 500 word story? That's a lot of time for something that's supposed to be fun. You're probably overthinking it. I mean, how many details do you really need to add per loop before it turns into a mess of nonsense? Sounds like you got caught up trying to be clever instead of just telling a simple story. Maybe just write one clean timeline and call it a day. It's not like anyone's grading you on it, right?