When my story has a powerful phrase but that loses its power when I read it again in the next day, should I keep it or remove it?

Question

Sometimes I have a great idea of sentence (usually for a dialogue) and it is just so nice, beautiful, epic, badass, powerful, or whatever other positive impression. However, sometimes I read it again in the next day(s) and it is just flat, cringey, contrived, life-less, or any other negative/neutral impression.So I don't know if I keep it (some kind of *"remember your first laugh"* for any positive impression) or if I remove it (because the positive impression was actually momentary and I realized it's actually not that good).So what to do? Does "remember your first laugh" can also kind of be applied to this or should I trust my inner editor's impression about it when I read devoid of any of the emotions of the moment when I wrote it?

Answer 1

The various creative writing teachers I've had over the years have all encouraged a "slash and burn" editing mentality. If you return to a piece of writing and find that a portion is not working, either change it or get rid of it. However, I recommend waiting more than a day before you take a heavy editing hand to your work. Leaving a finished piece alone for a week or even a period of months will grant you better clarity about what is and isn't working. When you distance yourself from your writing, you gain a fresh perspective and can make better decisions about what to polish.

If your main concern is individual sentences or pieces of dialogue, you might want to rethink your writing strategy. While a "powerful phrase" can be wonderful to read, ultimately your main concern should rest in the quality of your writing as a whole rather than a single cool sentence. First, concentrate on analyzing your story as an entity. Does the pace work? Are the plot and characters enjoyable to read about? Have you successfully conveyed the mood and setting to the reader? Does the story have effective dialogue overall? Are there elements that just aren't working?

Once you have worked through these (and many other) big picture questions, then you can worry about the emotional power of a single phrase. A publisher is far more likely to take a quality piece of writing with average sentences than a bad piece of writing with "epic" sentences or dialogue.