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During Novel November, a participant asked the following question: Hi guys. I don’t know if other people have this, but whenever I start writing a story, after I get a few chapters started, I lose interest in it and move on to something else. It’s like the spark in that book wuffed out and now I’m looking for another thing to write about. And it’s really frustrating ’cause I have like 10 unfinished books in docs and the spark in them is gone. Any advice or comments on why this is happening and how to stop it?

The first person to respond, replied with this: Gosh, I know this feeling. I’ve never been good at writing long form stories, because I always just have small scenes I wanna write and then nothing that interests me beyond that. I think it works differently for everyone, so this might not be of much help to you, but the way I’ve found to work with it is a combination of having some short stories that don’t take much to finish so I can get the dopamine hit and feeling of accomplishment from that, and accepting having multiple stories in WIP at once. I have lots of files and even more miscellaneous plot bunnies around that I jump between as I get the motivation, slowly hacking away at them. Sticking to planning and writing scenes as they interest me helps a lot too! I’ll slowly write an outline for a longer story, and then fill out the scenes as I have the motivation as I keep outlining. Eventually, I’ll have filled the skeleton with organs of words. This might not fit your writing style, but I’d say to give it a shot! It’s nice to accept having multiple things going. There’s no rush, writing is for having fun<3 

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Basically what is happening is the original poster (OP) and the responder are both inspirational writers. They work only when the muse is dancing. The problem is muses like the fun things. The inspirational muses have energy for occasional activity. They are not a day job and not a hundred thousand words of structured story with three draft passes before editing begins. they are not social media work, and figuring out chronological errors. That requires a very different type of muse – one most writers call food-on-my-table and roof-over-my-head.

If you been around my blog long enough, you know the mantra – butt in chair, hands on keyboard (BICHOK). (Previous postings: B is for BIC (4/2/2020) and Writing Exercise: Let’s Do This (Part One) (1/22/2019). Please note that I am sharing these posts from the discussion as they are a generic question-and-answer TONS of writers want to know.

 

I responded to the OP as follows and am sharing it here as this is a problem which faces many writers. Good luck in transitioning from inspirational writer to a full-story author. I do want to add, being an inspirational writer is FINE; have FUN writing. Lots of people do hobbies for pure enjoyment. But if you are frustrated, wanting to change the pile of easy-to-write scenes into a full story, maybe this can help you unlock a means to complete a manuscript. (Not everything works for everyone. Your mileage may vary.)

The <responder> is right. One of the work-arounds to an Inspirational Writer is do a quick (very non-detailed) outline with the scenes you know you want.

1) Write the outline scenes in any order.

2) Figure out the scenes needed to connect them into a story and write those.

3) Now write the last scene/chapter of the book and the very first scene.

4) Update your outline with the scenes you got.

5) Pick out a framework to work your story with and see where what you got falls in it for beats.

6) If you are missing beats, write them.

7) Look over everything again, updating your outline again. Maybe at this time write the one-page summary for selling to publishers and to agents, write the back blurb, and create a three-sentence (or less) elevator pitch.  (You will be updating these later, but they can help direct things to knowing what the actual focus of the story is.)

8) Anything else that interests you that needs saying? Write that.

9) Your first draft is done now because if it doesn’t interest you, it doesn’t need saying.

10) Second draft – go through and put in the Chekov’s guns that appear in the end of the story on the shelves at the beginning of the story. Add character depth and any scene transitions to connect the scenes. Work on dialog and add narrative description to the scenes (no white boxes).

11) Now wait a month but no more than three (maybe write or work on another book between).

12) Third draft – Do not do this until that wait a month is complete because you must have time to forget things. Read through what you got beginning to end (note that this may be the first time you are actually reading the book in order). Anything strikes you as missing – fix that. Update the outline to make sure you got a coherent story. Add any missing scenes you discover with this final update. (By the Way, at this point the outline goes into the Book Bible.)

Now it’s time to show this to your alpha readers as a completed manuscript. Trade beta reading with someone you trust. And continue forward with selling/editing/publishing. (Do not publish until edited/beta read!)

Yeah, it is not the traditional front-to-back writing everyone is told. It is a complete Frankenstein’s monster stitched together, but if you are an inspirational reader, this has worked for other writers.

Also note that writers all at some point or other HATE what they have written. One writer I follow, David B. Coe, says one time he stomped off and told his wife he hated what he was writing and it was complete garbage. She said “oh, you reached the 2/3 point already?” Come to discover (something his spouse already knew), he hated his stories at the 2/3 point where all the setup is done and everything is at loose ends and needed to be rethreaded to create the ending. This man has several long-term series and it is the same for every single book. Only way to get through for him (and it is his full-time job) is spend a week writing stuff that didn’t inspire him to get all the pieces back into play, and then he would be interested in the story again. Those two weeks of writing will undergo a lot of revision in drafts two and three, but they were written.

Always remember: You can’t edit what hasn’t been written.