| Symptoms | Problem | Solutions |
| Story has unpleasant odor. | Not enough air due to overwrought word choice or compaction.
If there is an odor of ammonia, too much pure crap is standing in the way of the real story. |
Strip the pile of its dense, soggy materials and replace with crisp, crackling prose to soak up excess bulls#!t.
Turn the pile, add fresh material, and move narrative elements around to aerate. Cover pile (put in drawer to rest) until inclement weather subsides. |
| Story is rich and warm only in the center. Failure to build heat/tension. | Pile is too small. Narrative elements are missing.
Insufficient conflict. Not enough air. See first symptom. Lack of nitrogen. Rich material is superficial. Go deeper. |
Make pile bigger. Identify missing narrative elements.
Add water by sticking a garden hose into the center in several locations. Turn the pile to aerate narrative elements. Mix in nitrogen, otherwise known as conflict. Add or remove backstory. Toss and start over!!!! |
| Story temperature exceeds 160°F. | Not enough air, lack of carbon, prose is turning purple. | Turn the pile to aerate.
Mix in 2 parts Hemingway for every one part bad Faulkner. |
| Large, undecomposed items remain in the story even after considerable time has passed. | Ya got some clunkers there. | Read to friends and remove sections that make them grimace.
Shred clunkers before adding new material. |
| In the middle of the night, rodents, coyotes, and raccoons lurk in the shadows near the story, waiting for a chance to raid the juicy bits. | Your prose is attracting aggressive nocturnal elements. | This is usually a sign that the writing is going well. Animal-proof your work area only if this bothers you. |
Dogpatch Writers Collective 