Sometimes I Like to Think...

Sometimes I Like to Think that when writer write in 'fill-in' lines in their work, they sometimes forget to go back and actually fill-in the content that was missing. So the silly jibber-jabber they include in their drafts, end up staying in the final cut and getting published.

I think the first time I thought about this was in junior high when we were reading Hamlet. There's a moment when Polonius is nusiancing Hamlet, asking him what he's reading, and Hamlet says 'Words, words,word.' I mean, there's obvious interpretations of this, but at the time I liked to think it was just Shakespeare putting in some filler text, and then when he went back to edit this play and saw it again, he just thought, Eh. I think I'll leave it in. That definitely sounds like something Hamlet would say.

Similarly, whenever I watch Supernatural and there are some gooberish lines, I think the writers' probably thought, Listen just fill that in with some nonsense for now and we'll come back with something clever later, and then just never got around to it.



Do you sometimes put in [filler text] when you're stuck so you can move past that point in your story?