Plotter me: Why did you stop in the middle of this scene? This is exciting!
Writer me: They’re just talking.
Plotter me: You write talky scenes all the time! 90 percent of your WIP is dialogue!
Writer me: Do I have to write this part right now?
Plotter me: You always write in chronological order! Which is why every time you get stuck, you don’t touch this thing for weeks! It’s a serious problem!
Writer me: Yeah, I’d ask on a forum, but I don’t actually have anything to resolve. I know how I want this scene to go down.
Plotter me: Exactly! This is a confrontation scene! Remember how excited you were, planning this?
Writer me: Yeah, but there’s no buildup. This is a new character being introduced and a slightly more familiar character saying “I know who you really are” and exposing them. Then they team up.
Plotter me: Exciting!
Writer me: Yeah, but not to write.
Plotter me: [sigh] I guess I should expect this from the guy who opens his book from the perspective of a pack of ACTUAL DRAGONS HUNTING IN THE FOREST and takes forever to even finish the chapter.
Writer me: The prologue is just so much more interesting to me though.
Plotter me: [tearing hair out] In what world is a page of infodumping more exciting than two people talking about a tangled web of alliances?!
Writer me: It’s like, a cool infodump. Like the kind Tolkien wrote. It’s the grandiose worldbuilding stuff. You know we both live for that. Can we skip fourteen chapters ahead to the part where the character I haven’t even introduced yet runs into his best friend who I also haven’t introduced but happens to be the son of one of the characters in this scene, where one character knows something the other one doesn’t and there’s a huge confrontation?
Plotter me: [banging head on desk]
Writer me: What? That one’s more exciting. There’s shouting and running away in it. And a perceived betrayal that absolutely devastates that character I haven’t introduced. You know he’s my favorite. Come on. Can we skip to that one?
Plotter me: Forget it. Let’s work on our Star Wars knockoff until you feel ready to come back to this.
Writer me: Yippee!
[later]
Plotter me: YOU HAVE SEVEN BLANK CHAPTERS WITH NOTES LIKE “ANOTHER JANGO FLASHBACK” and “SCENE WHERE THEY TRY TO KILL PALPATINE AND HARDEEN IS REVEALED TO BE OBI-WAN”! YOU WANTED TO WRITE THAT OBI-WAN SCENE SO BAD!
Writer me: Yeah but I really want to get to Darth Maaaaaaaaaaul and the Original Trilogy eraaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Plotter me: How are you ever going to get published
Writer me: Chillax. My MAIN WIP will be a labor of several years and I won’t publish it until all the books in it are done. Until then I’ll just write one-offs and publish those.
Plotter me: You mean one-offs like this one, or the five other one-offs you’re only twenty pages into?
Writer me: Oh.
Writer me: …I see your point.
Writer me: Maybe I should write songs instead?
Plotter me: YOU CAN’T WRITE MELODIES.
Writer me: Yeah but I have a few decent lyrics…
Plotter me: No more listening to concerts on YouTube while you work. You’re not going to be the next Ed Sheeran.
Writer me: What about the next Marcus Mumfor–
Plotter me: NO.