Rip it up and start again...

... as Edwyn Collins once sang.

Why do I tire of my characters and situations so quickly? They begin to irritate me, as does the whole writing process, in a very short space of time. I can't stay in the story, can't enter that bubble, their world. Inevitably this results in me deleting everything and starting again, and while this temporarily rekindles my interest, I know I'll just encounter the same feelings of despondency within a couple of thousand words.

 

If you don't know where you're going, how can you ever hope to get there? If you're bored with your work, how can you hope to entertain a reader?

 

I'm a panster. This is how we write, and millions of successful authors 'get there' all the time.

I don't know, but it doesn't change the facts as I stated them.

 

It happens sometimes to all of us, when it comes to just falling off the story
wagon once the steam runs out on a story idea.

Only the fool and the arrogant will just write through it, and it will show
their lack of interest in the story as a result.

So don't kick yourself over growing bored of a story that you aren't feeling
anymore. Just gotta move onto something else, until you either decide to
go back to the problem narrative, or just abandon it to the depths of the bin.

 

And lots of pantsers run into that problem. It's inherent in the methodology.

Sure it does. Don't write boring stuff. If the author isn't interested in what they're writing, how do they think a reader will be?

 

You're missing the point. I never said I thought it was boring. I said I get bored. It's not the same thing. If I thought I was writing boring stuff the solution would be simple, as you say.

 

Do you get bored that easily when you read?

If not, try to figure out what the difference is between what you are reading and what you are writing.

Writing isn't just about being able to write pretty words. It's about all the other things you need to do as well. Developing a plot and having the discipline to see it through, amongst other things.

If you find you lose interest after 2000 or so words, then write short stories within that word limit.

 

To an extent, yes. I can rarely read more than one chapter in a sitting, and more often than not no more than one sitting per day. Even when I have a book on the go I can go days without picking it up at all, and I've given up on far more books than I've finished [reading]. But your question has made me wonder if bored is the right word. Maybe it's not boredom but difficulty staying in the moment, resulting from a short attention span. With my writing I very much suspect there's also an element of me not believing in myself. Those voices saying "Who the fuck would want to read this shit?"

 

I a pantser, too. This might help. Every 1k words or so I like to make something unexpected happen. I think about what I can do that is not the expected next move for my story to take. And I do like to put myself into situations where I'm not immediately sure how to get out. Writing my story almost becomes some sort of puzzle for me to solve. I'm not talking about making something crazy happen every 1k words, just making something unexpected happen. And it can often be done seamlessly so readers won't feel jerked around, but it should keep things interesting.

 

Then you need to just get over it. Write, post it in the Workshop for critique, and learn from the feedback. Don't take it personally.

You don't know that it's bad. Others will almost certainly see it differently than you do.

If you never write because you're doubting yourself, you'll never get any better. You have to have the willpower to get over that.

It's like learning to sing or play a musical instrument. If you keep comparing yourself to Freddy Mercury or Jimi Hendrix, you might as well give up before you start.

 

I would lose interest half way through as well, constantly, which lead me to never finishing anything. And if I took a break and returned I could never "get back" into the story. What works for one person doesn't work for everyone else; thinking it will is what is foolish. Dumping it and starting something new meant two things: I never completed anything. And I only ever got practice writing the beginning and 1/2 of the middle. No experience in writing endings, tying it together, editing...nothing.

With me I learned that the moment I got an idea I liked was the moment to start writing it. Not sit and let it stew for a few weeks or months as others like to do. But immediately start writing, forget planning, it was a waste of time. That moment I got an idea I like started the sand timer of how long before the ran out of steam. Drove myself mad thinking about the idea until it just sounded stupid. 3 months later. Nothing written. Not a word. No improvement happening.

Then I realized you wouldn't jog to the shops then enter the Olympics the next day. Stamina. Discipline. Persistence. For some of us they take some time to learn. Reaching the end of something is a good feeling. So I started writing everyday. Short stuff that could be done in one sitting. It felt good to complete something. Then I moved on to novellas. It took me a week to complete the first one, but I did so easily. I just kept doing this until I learned focus. No planning. I used sentence starters off the internet if I needed to a jump start or my favourite sentence from a book I loved, but even that became more natural to me, making a story up on the spot. It worked my brain because I had no idea what was going to happen next and it didn't matter because this was for me, not other people. I think people start struggling when they think outside their bubble and start thinking about others reading it. Start with something you know you'll finish.

Maybe you need a full break from writing altogether. Physical activity, socialize (as much as we can) read. Forget about writing because really it's not all that important in the scope of things. Maybe writing is more habit to you now than something you enjoy doing. Take a break and see if you come back to it or not.

 

Your post makes an awful lot of sense. Thanks. But the above doesn't apply as this is the first time I've written creatively in about two years.

 

WOW! Your maybe the first person who has ever told me anything I've said makes any sense.

Well maybe that is the problem? Maybe your just a bit rusty. I took 10 years off writing to care for my Dad after his stroke, and three of those years recovering from his death and getting back into it was really hard. Couldn't write a novel. So I wrote a short story and uploaded it on here for feed back. It's like being a runner, an athlete, taking two years off and expecting to them win the Olympics. Not happening. You have to re-train body and mind. I still struggle now. But writing nothing for me right now improves nothing.

 

Hey @OurJud ! I've been running into the same issue recently. I'll get to 500-1000 words in a summoned wave of enthusiasm, and then everything comes to a dead stop. I'm not sure if I've found any real solutions to it, but here's at least some stuff that I've been trying:

1) Save it anyway, don't delete it. Editing is sometimes more fun than writing, and you never know--you might be able to fit all the junk together at the end of the year.

2) Keep writing anyway. In short, disjointed sentences, in stupid embarrassing lines of dialogue you'd cringe if anyone read. In single lines that would never make it into a finished story: just force yourself to get to the end. It always seems easier to go and flesh things out, like a sketch that you add more layers onto, rather than getting a meaty sort of 3000 words onto the page. Just bite the bullet and write your 1000 words of absolute garbage for the day. It's future-you's responsibility to make it palatable, not yours.
This one's really helped me lately, although I nearly die of embarrassment on the first read through.

3) Try to trigger emotional responses in yourself, and then write until it goes away. That's kind of vague, and it's probably super unhelpful, but one day not too long ago I came to the end of a rather long trip. It was quite melancholy, and I had had a bunch of jumbled up thoughts that I ended up writing down. It was't really anything more than a conversation with myself trying to cheer me up, but it turned into a short story that I quite liked. If you can find something that upsets you, or frustrates you, or makes you sad, sometimes it's a bit easier to write. I assume that's why writing and alcohol go hand in hand...

I hear Facebook is a good place to see things that make you mad.

Anyway, sorry if none of that helps and I hope you find something that works!

 

No, these are brilliant! I already decided not to delete, but just start a fresh document instead. It achieves the same thing without losing what's already been written. You never know when you might have call to go back to the abandoned project and lift something from it.

Also, you're the first person who seems to have recognised that we don't all over-write, and that some of us have to add (a lot) when editing, not remove.

Thanks for the words of encouragement.

 

@OurJud -- I'm like you too when it comes adding quite a bit during revision. I do far more writing than cutting during that stage.

 

I was beginning to think I was completely unique in that respect, and that it meant I was lacking somewhere. Almost everyone here talks about having written 187k words and how they'll have to cut it by almost half, and I'm thinking, how in god's name do you over-write to that extent? If I ever finish a novel I'll be lucky to hit 50k, and then have to find at least another 30k from somewhere.