Over the years, I’ve come to recognize symptoms of various problems I’ve encountered in writing. One of these is when a scene (or the plot in general) is headed in the wrong direction. Either a character is doing something inconsistent (without a reason) or the plot-logic is flawed, or any other number of issues pushing the story down the wrong road.
The symptom of this is an increasing slog in progress. Events don’t flow as well as they once were. Character interactions start to feel awkward, and I start rewriting conversations and actions because I can’t figure out a good way to move things forward. Daily wordcount shrinks and frustration grows.
Think of it like getting a flat tire. Or four flat tires. Instead of driving down a nice paved road, I took a wrong turn and ended up heading along a road made of broken glass and boulders. Unpleasant, to say the least, and the longer I head down that road, the worse it’s going to get, and the more repairs the car is going to need when I stop.
The solution? Don’t ignore the bumpy progress. It’s become difficult for a reason, and I need to find out why and fix it. Now, this is a different sort of difficulty than finding general writing motivation, unraveling a plot twist or otherwise. It’s not writer’s block, either. It’s just that my subconscious realizes the story is drifting off track and starts to put on the brakes so I don’t waste too much time driving over glass and boulders.
Most of the time I go back to the last point where the writing was flowing. This might be halfway through the particular scene I’m working on. Maybe it’s a few scenes back. But mostly I start feeling this mental wall building pretty quickly, and I’ve learned to turn back early enough to avoid having to chop too much at once. When I identify the spot where the flow started to slow down, I scrap everything from then on and start over.
Part of me resists this solution, even though it works well. I just had to cut a thousand or so words from a scene and start over from the midway point. My instinct is to go, “No, don’t cut that! That’s progress! You worked hard to get that written, and undoing it would be a waste.” But in the end, the words must go, because they don’t belong. And I’ve found that if I ignore this symptom and grind forward to the end of the story, then revising becomes a much rougher process with bigger issues to be fixed.
How about you? What symptoms alert you to plot or character issues?
Most of the time I go back to the last point where the writing was flowing. This might be halfway through the particular scene I’m working on. Maybe it’s a few scenes back. But mostly I start feeling this mental wall building pretty quickly, and I’ve learned to turn back early enough to avoid having to chop too much at once. When I identify the spot where the flow started to slow down, I scrap everything from then on and start over.
Part of me resists this solution, even though it works well. I just had to cut a thousand or so words from a scene and start over from the midway point. My instinct is to go, “No, don’t cut that! That’s progress! You worked hard to get that written, and undoing it would be a waste.” But in the end, the words must go, because they don’t belong. And I’ve found that if I ignore this symptom and grind forward to the end of the story, then revising becomes a much rougher process with bigger issues to be fixed.
How about you? What symptoms alert you to plot or character issues?
Heh… What if it feels that way for the whole book?
Exactly. Stop and write a different book.
Yup. This has happened to me before. I've started writing a first few chapters and just could not find any flow whatsoever. I shelved the concept for the time being, and am only now realizing the main character should likely be a girl or teen, vs. a grown woman, making the story YA. Perhaps in the future…