Definitely - and it's horrible! This happens to me with big projects, especially novels in which a lot of planning has been done prior to writing. I have written several drafts of a super-huge novel and when I was coming to the end chapters - where all mysteries were to be revealed, all secrets exposed, killers unmasked I found myself stalling out. How to bring this to an exciting climax? I finally decided to forgo my outline. Free-write, stream of conscious. And something wonderful happened - the end was like a beginning - in fact better than the beginning. It was sharp, edgey, not everything was tied up and there was a terrific showdown that I never could've planned. My advice is if you're over planning - toss out the plan, see where it goes. But if this idea isn't your thing - don't worry it's not for everyone, than try taking a break. You could take time out to read and relax. But I'm not really for that. I've taken breaks from projects and before I knew it weeks turned into months than years. I get involved in something else and I've got unfinished projects all over the place. Maybe write something fun with the characters you're working with - give them a holiday. Write a short-short story about them doing something totally bizarre and out of character. One character I treated the most poorly in my novel, I wrote a small scene where he happily married. Later on when I returned back to my project, the scene kept coming back and I managed to work more sympathy into his rash behavior.
I think you should alter the story as needed. If following a rigid plot line is killing your enthusiasm, or you find that your characters are behaving only to advance the plot rather than behaving as people, go ahead and change it up. Maybe the story will branch off in a completely different direction than you had intended. As far as breaks go, I suppose you can do it if you really feel that it's necessary. I wouldn't advise it, though. I think it's harder for me to get back into the story-into the zone, so to speak-if I take a break. I lose touch with the characters and the feel of the story, and I find myself backtracking and rereading earlier parts of the work to get back into that frame of mind (and also to make sure that no obvious inconsistencies arise). I know all of this from experience because I work on a drilling rig away from home for two weeks out of every month. My production plummets during a hitch, but during my two weeks off I write no less than 1,000 words a day. I consider writing 1,000 words in the two weeks I'm gone to be productive. In any case, I've found that when I return home my first day of writing is sometimes a bit choppy and I feel off. I'm back on track by the following day, usually. So, I think breaks kind of hurt the work. Something I'm doing now that may work for you is to write just enough to keep connected to the story, but only if you really have to take a break. I try to write at least a paragraph or two everyday while I'm on the rig, just so I don't lose touch and it's not difficult to jump back into the story when I come home. If you're taking a break, try to write just a little bit a day, maybe a paragraph.
Funny, because when I know what's gonna happen, I'm all the more excited to write it because in writing it, I feel the tension and excitement all the more - it's like thinking about a movie and then actually watching it. I grow bored and get a block when I don't know what's going on, because you can't write it if you don't know what to write. As for you, no, don't take a break. You may think you've got it all worked out but stories always change - you think of a better way to express this, you realise that there is a bad idea, or maybe some scenes lack natural progression even though in your head it all felt right. Just keep writing - by writing, you'll surprise yourself. If you don't write though, your story will never evolve and then it does become boring. You won't discover all the Easter eggs if you don't write Think of it this way, the plan's just the garden - you know the garden well, but you still don't know where all the eggs are, and maybe you'll find a bunny too I just got too carried away with my Easter egg analogy lol. Oh and I'm the sort who would stop if I ever took a break. The longest break I gave myself was 2.5 weeks, and I was getting worried. You need to actually work to get your fire back sometimes - I managed by realising that there're some things I just don't wanna write, even if the idea is the most obvious one and will solve my problem the most easily. Since I put some effort into thinking at a time when I was completely switched off and bored of my book, I managed to literally write myself out of my apathy. So yeh, the key - WRITE ON!
don't do what anyone else does or tells you to do... just do what works best for you... that can be any of these: take a complete break from writing take a day/week/month break from writing the piece you're having trouble with start a new piece of writing work on another existing piece of writing read do research for something you're writing do anything else you feel like doing or need to do
Ditto that. I take breaks all the time. Sometimes I wander away and start a new story. Sometimes I work on an old project. Sometimes I go for a walk. Sometimes I go shopping. If you need a break, take a break. If you try to push through it you run the risk of writing just to write and that can result in disaster. Do what you need to do and don't listen to us.
I am working on a story about two sibilings who are on the run from their abusive father an 18 year old brother and the sister is 19 years old . Anyway at one point in the story the Brother who is a virgin tells his sister that he want's to lose his virginity, and the sister helps him with this somehow, I won't say how because it will give away part of the story. But here is the problem where do i put the sex part? i want it to be in the middle of the portion of the story itself but i am not sure where exactly in the middle portion please help me.
Put it where it seems to fit? I'd write the story and see where it ends up. Asking the forum where to put something is kind of unfair. We don't know the story. You do. So, put it where it fits.
Here is what i have so far the sister and her brother are laying in there separate beds trying to sleep, but they can't sleep so they decide to talk the brother looks at his sister and says her name then i'm stuck it is some time after sometime after this conversation is where i want to put the sex part but i don't know how to connect the conversation they have to the sex scene and if i can't connect them the story won't get written.
You don't have to write things chronologically. Write the sex scene now and tie the scenes together later on. But if you insist, it seems that what you're really having problems with is what that conversation is about. How about something regarding they're childhood? Growing up? The Future? Where are they going? If they are running from an abusive father, a lot should be going on up there--plenty to talk about.
They're already connected -- they're the same topic of discussion. You don't need to do anything more to specifically link them together, because the reader will have already read the conversation and will remember it. I've got that creepy feeling that the brother is going to have sex with the sister, and if that's the case, believe me, no one is going to forget the conversation. If that is the case, put it in whenever it feels natural between them. (Just because it's creepy doesn't mean you can't write about it -- it's been done many times.) However, if it is not the case, and the brother has sex with someone else, put it in whenever it seems natural given the relationship the brother has with that other person.
If you aren't sure where it belongs, maybe it doesn't belong at all. Even if it does belong, no one but you can tell you where to stick it.
Why do you HAVE to have this sex scene anyway? Is it very important exactly how he has sex? Surely you should put the sex scene after the lead-up to it - eg. how he meets the girl, back to bedroom/hotel, sex. And yeah like Chicagoliz says, I've got this creepy feeling that the brother's gonna sleep with his sister. Certainly no one will forget that conversation!
McKK well the brother in the story is virgin and all his life he has to study study study because if he does not get good grades in school his dad would abuse him. Because of this he has had no time for a social life and now that he is free of his abusive dad he says to himself " I have spent my life studying my butt off and getting good grades because if i didn't i would be abused, now that i am free of that abuse i want to do what i want and what i want is sex".
I know this is going to sound crazy, but 18 is not a ridiculously old age to be a virgin. And even if they have not been abused, and have not been spending all their free time studying, all any 18 year old boy wants is sex.
You can be as crazy as you want. My point is that an 18 year old boy wanting to have sex is not unique. You can make his quest unique, and his personality unique, his family dynamic unique, but his desire, in and of itself, is not unusual, and on the contrary, would be expected.
Ok i will do that i will make the physical as well as his emotional journey as unique as possible and i will shape his personality as best i can.
Hello everyone! I'm new to this forum and pretty new to serious writing. I've always loved writing, and have been told by many people that I'm good at it, but I've never taken myself seriously until now. I am trying to write my first book. Right now I'm just dipping my toes in the idea of it actually being good. The other night, I decided that my original plot idea was way overdone. I love paranormal fiction, and the idea of a powerful female protagonist, but turned my original idea away from paranormal fiction and into the direction of something that could possibly happen in real life. To me, that is way more frightening and exciting to read (and more fun to write about). As I was watching TV the other night, a scene popped into my head that was full of action and blood and intense moments. I quickly got out my laptop and went to work. About 2 hours later I had a pretty solid scene written out that I am happy with. At first, I thought that this scene would be a good opener, but as I re-read it a few times, I decided it was too intense for an opening scene. My question for everyone is, is it okay to skip around and write scenes as they come to you? Or is it better to write straight through?
It's absolutely okay. I do it all the time. I think it's best to write the scene when it has come to you - that's when you have the passion for it. You can always revise it later if you need to tweak it to fit the story once it's time to put it in its proper place.
You can write your scenes in any order you like. The first scene I wrote for my novel wound up being part of chapter 4 (my chapters are 8,000 to 12,000 words long, usually, and the first draft had only eight chapters). I filled in the earlier stuff at a later time.
Thanks! How long does it usually take to write a novel? Months or years? My grandma wrote one and it took her about 10 years. I don't want to take that long but I don't want to rush through it. Is there like an average amount of time?
It depends entirely on you. I write a thousand words a day. Stephen King writes two thousand (of much higher quality). How much time you put in will determine when it gets published.
It depends, of course, on who you are and on what kind of novel you're writing. Georges Simenon (a major French novelist) wrote short novels exclusively, and he could complete a novel in a week and a half, on average. On the other hand, James Joyce (the classic Modernist experimentalist) took seven years to write his Ulysses and seventeen years to write the almost-unreadably-complex Finnegans Wake. So, how long is the book you plan? How complicated is it, plotwise and philosophy-wise? How much time per week to you have to devote to it? Are you a genius who can write brilliant stuff extremely quickly, or are you like the rest of us, who have to work long and hard to produce something barely readable? All of this influences how long it takes.
