Dear all,
I've started a novel more than once (twice getting to over 12,000 words) but haven't yet finished one. I was wondering what experience other writers have: what do you think are the factors that get in the way of finishing?

My thoughts include:
1) lack of preparation and planning: that feeling of "what next" that sucks all the momentum out
2) not writing at a regular time
3) external changes (eg birth of baby)
4) a better idea occurs
5) being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task
6) procrastination
7) writer's block

I'd be interested to hear what you think and what techniques you've used to get past the block

Thanks

Kev

There are all sorts of ways we fail to keep going with a novel:

- procrastination
- apparent 'writer's block', which means the words are strangled at birth
- being distracted and diverted by 'better' ideas, which is a harder-to-spot form of procrastination. (Jot them down and move on.)

But these are just symptoms of the core reasons, and different writers are more prone to different symptoms. Trying to sort the reasons into some kind of order I've come up with:

external, which sucks up all your time and or energy:

new baby/job/country
roof falling in/impending bankrupcty
sick spouse/parent

internal to the book:

the core idea simply doesn't have the 'legs' to carry a full-length novel. This is something that you get better at judging with experience. Or it can be solved by coming up with a subplot to interwine and provide more material/tension/thematic development for the main one

over-plotting: you're trying to fit characters and actions into a plan, and your instinct's telling you it doesn't work by refusing to write. Or you keep writing, but it's dry and mechanical because you're treating your characters as puppets. Try abandoning the plot and going with the characters. You can sort things out later.

under-plotting: as you suggest, what happens next? This is the moment for free-writing, letting yourself off and reading madly, long hot baths, forgetting your putative end of the story and grand plan and just thinking, 'Okay, never mind the resolution, does she walk out or keep talking?' Or there's Chandler's solution; make a man with a gun walk through the door, and see what happens.

internal to you:

a) Is your Inner Critic as well trained by parents and teachers in telling you it's rubbish as most people's? Thank him/her for her opinion, and say you understand it may not work, but you're going to write anyway.

b) Yes, are you daunted by the sheer scale of the task? Some find more planning helpful, breaking it into bite-sized portions. Some find less planning helps - just suck it and see, no pressure. It can also be your Inner Critic talking - "You'll never do it, will you? Better not to try and fail..." One solution is to say you'll write a sentence/paragraph/page a day, whatever's realistic. Another is to keep thinking that it doesn't have to be perfect, every word can be changed later, but you can't change words that aren't on the page.

b) Is there someone in your life who resents your absorption in your writing? Do they sabotage it implicitly or explicitly? A kind of real-life Inner Critic. They may not understand how much this means to you. Or it may be their own Inner Critic talking.

c) You've reached a point in the novel where you're having to dig into something about your own experience which you'd rather avoid. You may stick altogether, or you may write very superficially and un-engagedly, and you're in puppet-territory again. You could re-plot to avoid it, but there's nothing to beat that real, harsh experience, recollected in tranquillity for powerful writing. Writers are vampires, ultimately.

d) Ditto, with someone you care about: do you not want them to know you think this, or know about this stuff? Do you not want to be seen to be using their experience? Unless you're prepared to re-plot and are confident it'll be as good, this is where Greene's splinter of ice in the heart comes in.

Emma



<Added>

And yes, it can be that you're trying to write at a time of day that doesn't suit you, or regularly when you're a mad-bouts-of-inspiration person, or in mad bouts when you, personally, need to keep it on the boil with little-and-often.

I could go on, but I must go, I'm trying to finish a novel...

Lack of self discipline. Sometimes motivation isn't enough and you really have to push yourself through the tough times. There is always a point where you think it's all crap and a total waste of time.

Several points.

I write notes at the bottom of my work in progress so I add in things I think to tie in or write later on, so there's no excuse not to use:

4) a better idea occurs

as you type.

It's a case of self-challenge sometimes. Do you want to get there or do you not want to get there.

If you do, you make it happen

good luck!
A05

I've managed to write three (unpublished) novels. With each one I'd get to about 20,000 words then grind to a halt. What I did realise - and which is how I managed to finish them - is that I started out with only a rough idea of where I was going, and by about 20,000 words had written myself into a cul de sac. At that point I stopped writing, started doing some structured planning, and then rewrote what I'd already done and carried on from there. This is not, perhaps, the most efficient way to write a novel but it worked for me.

I find the same thing happens with short stories, but the grinding to a halt tends to happen at about the 1,000 word mark. I now use this as a signal that I've written my way into the characters and opening situation, and now need to get serious about how the plot is structured/how the story unfolds.

So what seemed, at first, to be a negative I've now turned into a positive that works well for me. Of course, it might not work for you at all but it's one way to look at your 'problem'.

I now use this as a signal that I've written my way into the characters and opening situation, and now need to get serious about how the plot is structured/how the story unfolds.

Daisy, that's absolutely fascinating. It's an illustration of how, though it's worth trying different processes that other writers suggest, rather than beating yourself up for what looks like a failing of yours, an apparent problem can be telling you something important, and ultimately positive, about how your writerly self operates.

Sometimes motivation isn't enough and you really have to push yourself through the tough times. There is always a point where you think it's all crap and a total waste of time.

This is true, but I'm not sure it's as simple as lacking self-discipline, which I would call a symptom, not a cause. Saying (to a committed writer, at least) that self-discipline is the key to getting a novel written is a bit like poor Boxer in Animal Farm saying that the key to making the farm work is simply that he has to work harder...

The impulse not to do something that you thought you wanted to do comes from somewhere deeper inside you. Learning to override the voice that tells you it's crap and a waste of time is terribly important, but if the Inner Critic doesn't manage to stop you by that means, it'll find another, like beating you over the head for your lack of self-discipline.

Emma

Often it's simmilar to the 'brick wall' that marathon runners have to face; the energy and drive is used up in the inital 10-20K words, and it turns into a gruelling uphill slog.
Keep at it and you'll eventually make it over the hill and down the other side in a sprint for the finish

- NaomiM

Lengthy plotting and planning works for me; that and the fact that I break the entire plot up into chunks of around 2000 words. So each time I sit down I think to myself that all I need to do is to write a short story. I try hard not to think about total word count until I'm around halfway.

Belief that you CAN finish is important too. Once you KNOW you can finish it makes it so much easier with subsequent projects.

I honestly think that with one's first manuscript, if you aim simply to a) finish and b) write something that a few friends will enjoy, you are doing very well, better than most people who start out thinking they'd quite like to be a novelist. Almost no-one gets a deal for their first completed ms. So relax and have as much fun as possible - learn and enjoy.

And finish. Just to prove you can.

Maria's got a very good point. When a friend taught me to knit, she told me to chose a stripy pattern to follow. Just the back took months but I kept myself going by saying 'I'll just finish this stripe,' and 'look how many stripes I've done,' and 'only two more blue stripes and I'll have reached the armhole,' and so on...

I think half-way through is easily early enough to start worrying about the final wordcount (I'd say don't start till at least the second draft) but I do keep wordcounts assiduously from the beginning, purely, like the stripes, for the sense of achievement along the way.

Emma

My point about self discipline might not cover everything, but it does come first, because without it you'll never have the time to develop the skills that will take you through the second, third drafts and edits. Without self discipline it is too easy to find other things to do - things that you know you don't really need to do just then, and it's only once you're up in the loft, coughing and spluttering and covered in grime that you think, "I should really be writing - that's what I meant to do today."

Sometimes sitting down and staring at a blank page is the biggest hurdle.

Wow, thanks, I've found this discussion really really useful.

I've just started drafting a new piece of work and have found it really slow-going, painful almost, even though I have lots of enthusiasm for the story.

Having read through this thread I've realised that I've allowed my Inner Critic to kick in far too early and have just this minute screamed back at It that 'THIS IS A FIRST DRAFT SO IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE PERFECT YET FOR GAWD'S SAKE'.

Phew, feel better now. Off to get the story written

Sharon
x

I think too, you have to be strong enough to take things out which could be holding you up. It took me a good while to be able to do this. I would change things, but not remove them totally. Now, looking back at things I wrote a while ago, I can see that, if I had been brave and cut certain areas out I wouldn't have bogged myself down.
Anything I cut now I keep, that way it doesn't feel so final.
Keep yelling at your inner critic, just don't do it when others can hear you!
Take care
Tracy

Finishing was my biggest hurdle, and the thing that, I feel, really made me a writer. I used to write all the time but not finish anything. Finishing my first novel was a huge task and a real mental barrier. Once I broke the barrier, everything changed. Now finishing sn't a problem at all. (other things are ). You really just have to write The End at some point, cut the umbilical cord, and then you can start seeing your book as something that's not just a dream and part of yout, but an object, a piece of art and craft to be shaped. The first time is the hardest!

I think that planning is everything. A lot of writers think that just sitting down and putting words on paper(or screen) is all there is to it. All work, short stories or feature length novels, need to be planned - not in detail, but a road map so you don't get lost on the way.

Whilst at the planning stage, I sometimes think it's better to start at the end and work backwards. That way you know you have something to aim for, you know the results, so can write all sorts of twists into the story to get there. I did that with 'Without Reproach' and it seemed to work wonders.

Anthony James Barnett

The planning thing is the place where writers vary most wildly in how, and how much, they plan. It certainly doesn't suit everybody, though I think there are fewer novelists than story writers who just sit down on day one start writing.

Emma