How do you stay interested?

All of the above.

If you're bored after 5000 words, I'd put money on it being a concept that you haven't properly developed into a plot.

Ideas are not stories. The twistiest intellectual concept, an interesting premise, or a really great character you want to explore, can all be the catalyst to coming up with a story, but they're just building blocks of the story itself.

Before you sit down to write one of these ideas, maybe you need to plan out the story arc. Knowing how it starts is all well and good (although often people realise later that they've started in completely the wrong place) but to maintain momentum I think you have to have at least a rough idea where you're going.

A story needs a 'problem' with at least 2 complications/escalations, a climax and an ending. if you don't have all of those things at least vaguely worked out, chances are you just have a premise without a story.

And if you DO know your story, but you just get a little way through and lose interest in it, maybe you have an attention span problem? that's not meant to be facetious, I mean you have difficulty concentrating on one thing for a sustained period. There really is no cure for that, except self-discipline. If you really are determined to finish something, then you'll get butt in chair and power through the blockage by sheer bloody mindedness.

And if THAT doesn't work - workshop it on here.

Kallithrix said:

All of the above.

If you're bored after 5000 words, I'd put money on it being a concept that you haven't properly developed into a plot.

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This. I come up with (to me) great concepts all the time. They go right into my bunny hutch, where they must stay until I find the Rosetta stones of character and situation that will allow me to translate them into stories.

I outline novels extensively before I start them, so I have confidence they can make the trip from Chapter 1 to The End. Boredom can be a symptom of such a lack of confidence, I find.

Then again, boredom can just be cussed laziness. This I push through, powered by cussed stubborness. Combining stubborness and a deadline, self- or otherwise-imposed, works for me.

This is how I discovered my structure was bad.

I had an outline ready to go for NaNo (I finished it on Halloween, but ready is ready). And I found myself impatiently racing through parts of it, and eventually ground to a halt because I couldn't take even one more forkful of Brussels sprouts but felt I had to finish them before I could have cake.

So now I rearranged my outline, and it's much more appetizing and I was able to pick back up after a week and a half.

(I'm not worried about catching up. Thanksgiving is a three hour drive each way, and I won't be the one driving.)

I find that outlines really help. If you have direction and you don't feel like you reach a point where you'll end up rewriting a substantial portion, it can be really motivating.

Right now I'm working on a novel that I researched and outlined for THREE MONTHS (that just seems like such a crazy amount of time). I'd invested so much time in doing that once I started to write, I had a pretty good idea of where I was going and also didn't want to waste the time I invested.

Another thing I like to do is self public shaming - I put the WIP up on my website. Then if I have to take it down, I feel bad about myself. But that is just my little quirk- what it takes to get someone going and motivated is all subjective!

And seriously, if you don't finish - no harm. I mean, if you get an idea that will be a real novel when you're plugging away at one that just doesn't work, it IS okay to grab at that bright shiny object!

For me, I don't commit to a full-length work unless I'm really wild about the concept to begin with. Later, if my commitment is flagging, it's not due to my faith in the project itself, but rather how to proceed from wherever the snag is happening (such as deciding what new conflict to introduce). Once that decision is made, work begins again with new vigor, because I would much rather be making advanced progress on a partially completed work, then starting a new piece from scratch. That can be exciting too, but for me, it's much more thrilling to be nearing the peak of the mountain you're on then scouting around at the base of a neighboring mountain.

I can only stay interested in writing fiction if I'm writing characters that interest me. For me, that means writing characters with incredibly detailed backstories. I try to know where they were born and raised, where there parents are from (and how they met), where they went to school... right on down to little details like posters on their bedroom wall in high school or whether they would wear the same pair of pants two days in a row. 99.9% of that never ends up in the story, but knowing it keeps me interested in them. And for each one, I try to come up with some personality trait that makes me like them, even if they are otherwise thoroughly off-putting.

take care,

---Jones()

I've been writing the same series for five years, and sometimes I find my interest wanes. When that happens, I remind myself why this project was important to me when I started it, why I care about the characters, what scenes I haven't written yet that I've been DYING to write for years, etc. Usually, if I push through those moments of waning interest, I reach a point of the book that I'm really wild about, or I have a good writing night, and then my interest skyrockets again. It's kind of a cycle, at least for me.

How do I stay interested? I only write things which interest me.

I know, silly answer, even arrogant, but that's how I do it.

I want to second that part of it may be that this just isn't the right time for you to write a novel. I tried for years to write a novel, and always ended up with a similar word count to you. Great ideas, great momentum, 5,000 words.

Then I spent two years writing short stories. I read a lot, studied the craft, took a creative writing class. I spent almost every day of those two years writing. I got in the habit of writing even when I didn't feel like it. I wrote a ton of terrible short stories, studied how they were terrible, and wrote better ones.

When I sat down to write a novel, I didn't set out to write the next great best seller. I just wanted to see if I could write 90,000 words. I wrote every day, never edited, and never deleted. My first draft was awful, but it was 100,000 words long.

Be patient with yourself. Practice writing any way you can. If you've got a novel in you, it will come out when it's ready. With a whole lot of hard work and perseverance, of course =)

Phaeal said:

boredom can just be cussed laziness.

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Yep.

When I start dragging my feet at about the 45-50K mark, I try to have a shiney new idea about my current story instead of my new one. My mental mantra is something like "Only one more chapter until I get to write _____"

I think the writer bored/reader bored thing is best picked out after you're finished the draft.

jaksen said:

How do I stay interested? I only write things which interest me.

I know, silly answer, even arrogant, but that's how I do it.

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It's not silly or arrogant. In fact, it was pretty much what I was going to say as well.

Write what is interesting to you and you will not lose interest.

the obvious suggestion?

Not trying to be mean, but the obvious issue is that maybe you haven't made you story interesting enough? A certain boredom is expected at times of the writing process (arg, try spell checking 100K words), but if you consistently don't find your story interesting, maybe the reader won't either?

Do you create characters that are fun, interesting situations, conflicts at all levels, dilemmas, and puzzles?

Maybe at 5000 words you don't have the hook developed yet. This is where you should have major problems, and the character s/b looking for solutions-which in means the writer have to be looking for solutions (and more obstacles!) to drive their character forward.

Not saying this is your case, but had to ask the question.

Boredom happens to us all. I find if I can come up with something exciting to entice me to go on, then I can overcome it eventually. Something that works for me, is that I write for a good while just up until the point when I'm getting to a good part that I'm really excited to write. Then, I stop, knowing that I'll be able to get to that part the next time I write. That way, I remain excited looking forward to the next time I get to write.

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