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Motivation to finish writing a novel

pat j

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I have seen your replies, but first off, did you do an outline? If so, one thing you can do is make a more and more detailed outline. Once you have a detailed enough outline you have everything you want but you just need to write it out.

My advice is you have to have a story that you NEED to write. Also, people start a story prematurely. I take notes at least 2 years before starting a novel. You really have to think a long time before finding out what your story is about before writing it. Also, you can feel when you are ready to write it. I will be taking notes for years and finally it clicks and then I am ready to write it. On some level your brain is giving you ideas you do not actively think of. You need to figure out what your subconscious is trying to tell you and why you have ideas about this story.

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+10E99

Planning and organising make writing so much easier.

It is far easier to see the path through the woods from a balloon flying high than it is when you are down in the weeds amongst the trees.

And it is far easier to avoid dead ends and useless detours if you plan out the scenes before you start pouring out reams of verbiage.

First be creative with the plot and defining your characters then be creative with the actual description of each scene that the story needs.

Planning won't kill creativity. That is just an excuse people use to procrastinate because planning is hard work. But that work up front saves at least 10x as much work that would be needed if you just started writing and hoped to somehow magically come up with a great plot, interesting characters, and have the subplots and all the clues planted earlier come together at the end for a satisfying finish.
 

BethS

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Planning won't kill creativity. That is just an excuse people use to procrastinate because planning is hard work.

That's may be true of some people somewhere. It's not true for me, and for a number of writers I know.


But that work up front saves at least 10x as much work that would be needed if you just started writing and hoped to somehow magically come up with a great plot, interesting characters, and have the subplots and all the clues planted earlier come together at the end for a satisfying finish

My brain only wants to tell a story once. I discovered that fairly early on my years as a writer. A story that's outlined or summarized in advance is guaranteed to be the story I'll never write, because it's already been written. It no longer holds any interest for me. I write the same way I read: to find out what happens next.

Also, for me, characters come to life only in the crucible of the story, not in the cold and sterile confines of the prewriting lab. So I don't write character bios and I don't plan stories in advance. They grow of their own accord in the writing, and yes, it is rather magical.
 
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Harlequin

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I seem to be agreeing with Beth a lot lately (!)

I think pantsing gets a bad name.

Somewhat controversially, I think there is a difference between writing intuitively (what professional 'pantsers' do) and flailing around helplessly, unsure of what's happening on the page. People who are new to writing or perhaps just doing it for fun, not taking it very seriously, often fall into the pantsing category by default, but their approach bears little resemblance (imo) to the sort of method taken by Stephen King or whoever. I'm not a fan of King particularly but he does write intuitively, with a rough guide of which thing goes where and how to pace appropriately.


Planning does not save me time. I'm quite happy to accept it does for others; but I can only vouch for myself. I start with character goals, an emotion I want to end up at, and I don't really care how I get there. My stories then end up with rather convoluted plots because a lot of twists and turns have to happen to enact the character change I want, but that's okay. If I'd planned it out in advance it would be more straightforward but (for me) less interesting.

The main person who has to be interested in your writing, is you. If you don't find it interesting, you won't finish, and you certainly won't be able to convince anyone else to do so, either.
 

indianroads

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Planning won't kill creativity. That is just an excuse people use to procrastinate because planning is hard work. But that work up front saves at least 10x as much work that would be needed if you just started writing and hoped to somehow magically come up with a great plot, interesting characters, and have the subplots and all the clues planted earlier come together at the end for a satisfying finish.

Seems a little harsh - try a Colorado cookie.

I'm a planner, it's the way I write... the way I WRITE, not the way everyone should write. We're individuals... even within the microcosm of this forum we're a pretty varied group. To me, what matters is the result, not the process of getting there. Of course we all should be looking at our personal process for ways to improve it after each and every novel is written. There just isn't one standard process that we should be using to stamping out books like on a manufacturing process line. Attempting to get everyone here to do it one way - that's like trying to heard cats.
 

mccardey

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My brain only wants to tell a story once. I discovered that fairly early on my years as a writer. A story that's outlined or summarized in advance is guaranteed to be the story I'll never write, because it's already been written. It no longer holds any interest for me. I write the same way I read: to find out what happens next.

Also, for me, characters come to life only in the crucible of the story, not in the cold and sterile confines of the prewriting lab. So I don't write character bios and I don't plan stories in advance. They grow of their own accord in the writing, and yes, it is rather magical.

Very much this.
 

BethS

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Somewhat controversially, I think there is a difference between writing intuitively (what professional 'pantsers' do) and flailing around helplessly, unsure of what's happening on the page. People who are new to writing or perhaps just doing it for fun, not taking it very seriously, often fall into the pantsing category by default.

And I suppose some discover in time that they actually do belong there with the pantsers, while others figure out that they work better with a plan in hand. Part of becoming a writer is figuring out the methods that work for you. That often takes trial and error. I started out as an outliner. That didn't last.
 
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Liz_V

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Somewhat controversially, I think there is a difference between writing intuitively (what professional 'pantsers' do) and flailing around helplessly, unsure of what's happening on the page.

This, definitely.

I'm more on the pantser side of the fence (I'm certainly not an outliner!), but I don't write a bunch of random stuff that I end up throwing out, nor do I go haring off in eight different directions and end up with a discombobulated mess. In fact, my first drafts are pretty clean. Sure, I have to stop and do some figuring out at times, but that's not inherently less efficient than doing all the figuring out at once, at the start; it's just broken up into smaller pieces. And for me, I find I come up with much better ideas if I do the figuring out when I need it, with the momentum of the story-so-far behind me.

Write however works for you. If what you're doing is not working, try something else, but don't get locked into some arbitrary process because somebody else insists theirs is the One True Way. There is no One True Way. What matters is that you end up with a good book; there are lots of ways to get there.
 

CalRazor

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Just got done with another writing session. Getting there.

When I write, I feel like inevitably that I always go back and re-write large chunks of it, though I guess I'm still pretty green. Only finished one novella before my first novel, which I'm still working on. Part of the re-writes are due to not fully keeping track of the various plot points, and I'm writing something based off of an inaccurate memory, or I'll ditch the first draft because something just doesn't make sense for some other reason.

Anyway, excitement for the story is growing again. I'm at the last 15,000 words or so.
 

Liz_V

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Keep plugging away, CalRazor!
 

CalRazor

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Getting close, but still no cigar. I keep chasing down other possibilities that at the time seem more likely to get published than this bloated novel. I really think the protagonist is a good character, even though there are a lot of wrinkles to iron out. There's a ton of potential here. The finish line seems very far away though. There's also less confidence now than when I started, and I keep dropping the ball because it might all be wasted effort. I'll still probably finish the book, just to show myself I can.
 

Clovitide

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Getting close, but still no cigar. I keep chasing down other possibilities that at the time seem more likely to get published than this bloated novel. I really think the protagonist is a good character, even though there are a lot of wrinkles to iron out. There's a ton of potential here. The finish line seems very far away though. There's also less confidence now than when I started, and I keep dropping the ball because it might all be wasted effort. I'll still probably finish the book, just to show myself I can.

The finish line is always so far away. Even when you finish the novel, it's still super far away. So, keep in mind nothing written is ever wasted, and always hold onto your confidence. It's one of your best assets. Th novel I'm working on at the moment is always the soon to be best seller. It is always my breakthrough. And when I finish it and start polishing it, the next idea is that best seller. It helps me to finish it to think that, maybe, this is the one.
 

CalRazor

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The finish line is always so far away. Even when you finish the novel, it's still super far away. So, keep in mind nothing written is ever wasted, and always hold onto your confidence. It's one of your best assets. Th novel I'm working on at the moment is always the soon to be best seller. It is always my breakthrough. And when I finish it and start polishing it, the next idea is that best seller. It helps me to finish it to think that, maybe, this is the one.

Yeah, confidence is a big deal when it comes to maintaining motivation. But I dunno. I've been toiling away in relative obscurity for awhile now, and the most success I've gotten isn't related to my fiction writing at all, but non-fiction (blog + social media). I think the slow realization I've come to is that, if the goal is to be reasonably successful at this writing thing, you have to insert your work into a relatively popular genre. Before, I was focused on being original. Which lead me to write a novella in the second person, putting it up on Amazon, only for someone to say "congratulations, you've written something no one wants to read" (referring to the second person style). While I did appreciate the honesty, this dashed my confidence pretty severely, now I'm questioning if what I'm writing has a decent amount of widespread appeal. The novel I'm currently working on could be billed as horror, which to my understanding isn't an easy genre to make a profit in. But, it's more horror-lite and has elements of thriller genre too. Even though I think this is much more marketable than my last book in terms of writing style, I still have doubts. I've become more genre-focused, and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
 

Liz_V

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There's also less confidence now than when I started

That's actually a pretty common reaction; as you get better at writing (and you get better with practice, and a novel is a lot of practice!), it becomes easier to see the flaws in what you're doing. That doesn't mean your writing isn't good, or getting better; it just means your standards are getting higher. And often, our standards outstrip our skills. Which makes us want to improve, which starts the whole cycle around again....

As for genre, who the heck knows? Horror-lite/thriller sounds like a good bet to me, but what publishers will buy at any given time is a total crap-shoot. All you can do is write what you like, and hope it comes into fashion at the right time.
 

CalRazor

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Well, I did it. Finished my first novel. I'm going to bask in this achievement then go take a leak.
 
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CalRazor

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66K+ words. Not sure if that's a bit too short for novel material. But eh. There it is.
 

HarvesterOfSorrow

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All I'm writing right now is a mess. It's not a novel. It's a mess. It's not a story. It's a mess. They're not characters. They're messes. I'm about forty-five thousand words in, plus another twenty-five thousand-ish in notes. This is a complicated story, so I've written "behind the scenes" material for characters to help me understand things better. Never done that before, and while some of the writing is good, the majority f it is awful, and that behind-the-scenes stuff is obviously isn't going to be read by anybody because while it's important to the story, it's not actually a part of my story.

I finished four novels in under five years, and I was very happy with that fourth. I wasn't able to get an agent, but I really feel I pushed myself as a writer with that story. The next one I tried, I trunked it. It was the first time I'd trunked a novel since I was a teenager. I am adamant I will finish this piece-of-shit first draft just so I don't get into the habit of trunking half-finished manuscripts.

Thing is, though, is that I think this is a really good idea. I love the idea for the novel, but I have done a piss-piss-piss-poor job at the execution so far. Now, my first drafts are always turds, but at least there's always a story there. Through the following drafts, things always get cleaned up and sexy. But this first draft smells like a skunk that crawled out of the ass of another skunk.

But I'll finish, damnit. I'll finish. I'll finish this draft, write another novel, then come back to this one when I get my head together and I know how to execute it.

That's all. Carry on, folks. Nothing to see here.
 

Snitchcat

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IME, it helps to write a "candy" scene sometimes, then work backwards (or forwards, depending on where your "candy" scene falls) to link it back to the previous part of the story.

Of course, the flipside is writing all the "candy" scenes then doing none of the linking work. >,<

However, sometimes, struggling to write through a certain part of the story might be an indication of something wrong with the story thus far. Occasionally, it's worth pausing, taking a quick break, then going through all that's been written so far. The part where the story "veered off" usually leaps out and you can put yourself back on track.

Having said that, this method doesn't always work. :tongue
 

Liz_V

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Well, I did it. Finished my first novel. I'm going to bask in this achievement then go take a leak.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy!!! :hooray:

66K may be a bit on the short side, depending on the genre, but not inexcusably so. It may be that that's just the right length for the story you've got, or it may be that you'll expand it a bit in revisions. Don't sweat it, just enjoy the victory!
 

mccardey

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And the great thing, of course, is that when you finish your novel you get start another one.
 
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CalRazor

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Yaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy!!! :hooray:

66K may be a bit on the short side, depending on the genre, but not inexcusably so. It may be that that's just the right length for the story you've got, or it may be that you'll expand it a bit in revisions. Don't sweat it, just enjoy the victory!

Yeah, some bits will probably expand or reduce in size through the editing process. Yep, I fully intend to enjoy my victory! No writing this morning, at least not of the fiction variety.

And the great thing, of course, is that when you finish your novel you get start another one.

O rapture, another novel. Hehe. So many possibilities. Maybe I'll just screw around in the land of short fiction and poetry for awhile. Sub some work.
 
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Liz_V

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I often take a "break" and do short fiction for a while after finishing a novel. (Well, assuming the next novel will let me.) It keeps the writing brain active but lets me gear down from that all-obsessive thing I tend to do when in the final throes.
 

CalRazor

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Yeah, maybe I'll try submitting to that magazine which rejected my submission but complimented it anyway, and told me to submit again. Couldn't hurt.
 
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