Hi everyone - long time!

I started on the WIP with great gusto. However, 30,000 words in the doubts began to creep in: is omniscient the best way to tell this story? Would it be better in close third-person, from the point of view of the character I find most interesting? But wouldn't that result in a narrowing of the scope of the book?

I sent the WIP with a synopsis to my agent. He loves the big canvas, and the way the book's going, and has tentatively suggested I persist, for even if I do decide to abandon it later, it won't have been a waste. I do agree. So I spent the last couple of weekends getting back into it. It's not going well. The writing is lifeless, and I feel lifeless writing it. And I keep on thinking of other ways to tell the story.

Is it better to just write through it? Or should I listen to the voice in my head that says to the WIP, 'This isn't working, and, no, it's not me, it's you.'

Thanks for any advice,

Sam

Hi Sammy,
I wonder if you've just hit 30,000-itis? It really does seem to happen around about this mark. I've just hit a wall at 29,000 words in. Have been reflecting on this for a while and I think it stems from the fact that, having 'done' the introduction and been pretty happy to go for a 'shitty first draft', my little editor crept in again and is sitting on my shoulder saying: 'this should be perfect' again. Ring any bells? I intend to write through it - soon! Your mention of the word 'lifeless' seems like a clue - it sounds like you might be trying to edit before you've written the shitty bit! Why not just go for it - tell yourself that the next 60,000+ words are going to be a load of old tat, but they're going to happen. And that once they're down, you can have a good old go at them, because at least then you'll have something to work on.
Hope this helps and that you regain the energy soon.
Susiex

Yes, it seems to be incredibly common to hit a third-of-the-way-through doldrums - I do, too, and so do lots and lots of other writers I know. The initial gusto has worn out, and you're not yet in sight of the end, and so there's room for all those nasty voices, the Inner Critic, the cold winds...

I think Susie's idea is the right solution for just about everyone: just write. You know enough about the beast now to keep writing something even if it's just placeholders for the words which you will discover, by working your way to the end, are the words which should actually be there.

If any of those voices which say there are better ways to do it sound really quite convincing, you can always make a note of what they're saying. By the end of the first draft, you'll know if they're right.

Good luck! We've all been there.

Emma

I've just read a very simple thing about novel-writing, which although it's glaringly obvious when you think about it, hadn't actually 'landed' fully with me. It's that a novel has three parts: the first third is Introduction, the second third is Development and the last third is Resolution. So in the context of getting stuck at the first-third mark, you have reached a kind of completion: and perhaps it seems like a huge milestone to your subconscious, who wants a bit of a rest before moving into Development...
Susiex

Hi Susie - that definitely does ring bells of some sort! I've not so far been a great follower of the 'shitty first draft' idea - it seems to need to be at least serviceable prose before I can carry on - but maybe just going for it will clear things up. And I've been resting this WIP for nearly three months now, so I'm hoping I'm ready to move into the development phase. I'm going to take your advice and go for it for at least another 10,000 words. And after that, another 10,000, and after that... Breaking it up might help. Good luck in your 'writing through' too!

Hi Emma - I think some, or at least one, of those voices is sounding pretty insistent. Insistently demanding another structure, too, and hence the prevarication.

Strange how I never really dithered on such matters with the first novel. As soon as the doubts came in, the WIP was scrapped and I started again. I wonder if this had been a first novel, I'd have consigned it to the bin a long time ago... Begs the question, when to 'write through' and when to scrap?

I've been manically searching what other writers do at this stage, and came across this by Alice Munro - who is never wrong - in The Paris Review Interviews. Thought others may find it useful and/or heartening.

I could be writing away one day and think I’ve done very well; I’ve done more pages than I usually do. Then I get up the next morning and realize I don’t want to work on it anymore. When I have a terrible reluctance to go near it, when I would have to push myself to continue, I generally know that something is badly wrong. Often, in about three quarters of what I do, I reach a point somewhere, fairly early on, when I think I’m going to abandon this story. I get myself through a day or two of bad depression, grouching around. And I think of something else I can write. It’s sort of like a love affair: you’re getting out of all the disappointment and misery by going out with some new man you don’t really like at all, but you haven’t noticed that yet. Then, I will suddenly come up with something about the story that I abandoned; I will see how to do it. But that only seems to happen after I’ve said, No, this isn’t going to work, forget it. INTERVIEWER Can you always do that? MUNRO Sometimes I can’t, and I spend the whole day in a very bad mood. That’s the only time I’m really irritable. If Gerry talks to me or keeps going in and out of the room or bangs around a lot, I am on edge and enraged. And if he sings or something like that, it’s terrible. I’m trying to think something through, and I’m just running into brick walls; I’m not getting through it. Generally I’ll do that for a while before I’ll give it up. This whole process might take up to a week, the time of trying to think it through, trying to retrieve it, then giving it up and thinking about something else, and then getting it back, usually quite unexpectedly, when I’m in the grocery store or out for a drive. I’ll think, Oh well, I have to do it from the point of view of so-and-so, and I have to cut this character out, and of course these people are not married, or whatever. The big change, which is usually the radical change. INTERVIEWER That makes the story work? MUNRO I don’t even know if it makes the story better. What it does is make it possible for me to continue to write. That’s what I mean by saying I don’t think I have this overwhelming thing that comes in and dictates to me. I only seem to get a grasp on what I want to write about with the greatest difficulty. And barely. INTERVIEWER Do you often change perspective or tone? MUNRO Oh yes, sometimes I’m uncertain, and I will do first person to third over and over again. This is one of my major problems. I often do first person to get myself into a story and then feel that for some reason it isn’t working. I’m quite vulnerable to what people tell me to do at that point. My agent didn’t like the first person in “The Albanian Virgin,” which I think, since I wasn’t perfectly sure anyway, made me change it. But then I changed it back to first again.

Sammy, I'm similar to you in that I need my first draft to be of 'serviceable prose' - but I think you can still write serviceably and shittily! In other words, with the viewpoint that what you are writing is just a frame, a structure to begin working on in the second draft. If that makes sense.
Love the Alice Munro quote - I was holding my breath at the beginning of it, thinking, 'oh no, she's going to say you have to give up when you hit these points of reluctance/hatred' - then was so relieved when she said she found the way through!
Good luck with it,
Susiex

That makes a good deal of sense, Susie. I had thought (somewhat childishly) - and still do to some extent - that I need to feel the pull of the ending while writing the book, but, as you say, it's more important at this stage to get the book down in some form. Thanks a lot!

Thanks, Luke - I'll bear that in mind!

Sammy? Is that really you?


*Dies of happiness*

Sapph! Get up, get up - 'tis me!

Don't think I ever said how much I enjoyed Mothernight. It's really stayed with me, especially Rosie's creepiness; you actually made me feel quite sorry for her at the end.

Very much keeping an eye out for whatever you publish next.

Apologies, SAmmy, did not recognise you. Hope you're going to stick around, I've really missed your habit of uploading of interesting and obscure newspaper articles.



- NaomiM

Hi Naomi! The habit persists, I'm afraid, so if I do spot any in the near future I'll be sure to draw them to your attention.

Very much missed your straight-talking advice!

Hope you're well.