Spent 4 hours on a 200 word prompt that should have taken 20 minutes

I kept deleting every draft because the setup felt too generic, so I finally just wrote the dumbest premise I could think of and somehow that unlocked the whole story. Anyone else hit a point where forcing originality just makes it worse, and what's your trick for breaking out of that loop?

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kelly9681mo ago

Dumbest premise I could think of" is literally my whole writing process now. Forcing originality is a trap because your brain just spins in circles. I set a timer for 10 minutes and write the most cliche, boring version on purpose. Then I go back and punch it up. Usually by then I'm bored enough to make it weird. It's like the dumb version gives me permission to stop being precious. Works every time.