If you’ve ever felt like erasing your entire manuscript—”select all, delete,” as this author puts it—take a few moments to consider whether you’ve given the story a chance to unfold in its own way.

by Bjorn Leesson

You are at your keyboard, staring at the screen. The words won’t come, and the story is not what you imagined when you typed the first word. Your characters are hanging out on the fringes of your carefully planned mental images—not in the center.

“What the hell am I doing? Maybe I should just delete this and start over.”

As a newcomer to published works, I have learned quite a lot, and I certainly have a lot more learning to do. But I do feel sure I can offer some good advice to other writers who are maybe staring at their screens right now with longing and regret.

It has been my experience that no matter how hard I tried at first, the story inevitably became a lifeform of its own and merely took suggestions from me, the storyteller. Each spontaneous quirk of a character can transform them into something else with more depth and layers. Each unplanned twist can send the story onto an unmarked and exciting path for me, the author, as well as the reader. And each of these circumstances can find me staring at my screen with the realization that I am at twenty-five percent adherence to my story outline. After a few of my own “select all, deletes,” I finally trusted my uninhibited instinct to follow the budding story to where it goes, and that has made all the difference for me.

After a few of my own “select all, deletes,” I finally trusted my instinct to follow the story to where it goes, and that has made all the difference for me.

As I wrote the first three installments of the Outside the Thalsparr series, the main character, Myrgjol the Dokkrsdottir, went from a little quirky and badass—as planned—to being quite quirky and even more badass, but also deep, layered, and complicated. Myrgjol became Myrgjol because I let “her” write her own story without my stringent and iron-fisted control. I followed her story to where it went, and by the end, I loved it. But only after letting loose of the reins and following the story, despite the times I thought it was going down the wrong path and off a cliff. It didn’t.

With Myrgjol’s main story arc mostly completed (with the future fifth installment, that is), I followed the story on to two more characters with stories of their own: Ingrid Stone-Splitter, Myrgjol’s huge and powerful sidekick, and Lord Wuldrid, the Saxon lord with a small part to play in the first installment. As it turned out, the story told me both had so much more to do in the Thalsparr.

But the story wasn’t done with me yet. Now it has me writing the story of Josephine Peele, another character that showed up in person only briefly in Book One and was occasionally mentioned in Books Two and Three. Book Six (and likely also Book Seven) will take “footnote Josephine” from the periphery to shocking reality, in both characterization and importance to the overall story.

After that, who knows? I will see what the story tells me at that time.

Saying all that, yes, I fully acknowledge there might be a time for that “select all, delete.” I did it twice on Book Three, but I knew I wasn’t overreacting to veering off the planned course just a little. You will know too. But before you do, give the story a chance to write itself. Just think of all the wonderful characters and stories that will never be because you didn’t.

Bjorn Leesson is the author of the Outside the Thalsparr series of fiction fantasy novels. The first two installments, Runes of the Dokkrsdottir and Rune of Renewal, are available now on Amazon. Three more installments, Rune of Destiny, Rune of Revenge, and Rune of Whispers are planned to be released throughout the rest of 2024. Born in the Lowcountry of South Carolina a long, long time ago, Bjorn finds just about everything fascinating in some way, and blend of a few of his interests led to the creation of the Thalsparr Universe. He currently lives in the Midlands of South Carolina with his wife of twenty-five years on their hobby farm.