Best trick I ever picked up. Seriously.
I have also learned this is great for [PICK A COOL NAME FOR A SHIP] and [LOOK UP THE FACTS ABOUT OXYGEN LEVELS] and [WHATâS THE WORD] and [DOUBLECHECK CHARACTERâS EYE COLOR] and ALL KINDS OF THINGS.
Anything that isnât critical in the moment, and could be filled in later while Iâm currently trying to burn through writing pages that will be lost if I donât get them out right now? Brackets.
This is seriously the best advice, and it really helps put it into perspective that the first draft is just that- a draft. Thereâs no reason to agonize over a particularly tricky bit of writing when you could just leave it in brackets and skip to the good parts, the parts youâve visualized. I also use brackets for [fact-check this], [use a stronger verb], [is this in character?] and other notes as I write, just so I donât forget what I want to work on when I go back and edit.Â
Note the good sense of [brackets] not (parentheses).
Parentheses AKA round brackets can appear in fiction, usually as an afterthought in a character's thoughts or narration (as I saw them used just recently), but square brackets hardly ever do.
