Stumbling Blocks

[phoenixwings]

Ever since I have started writing my third draft of my novel Lady of the Kryptonites all I have encountered is brick wall, after brick wall, after brick wall. I'm now on Chapter Eight and I can't seem to get push past it.
I think the main problem is, is that I feel unsatisfied with how the story is unfolding so far and I feel that my writing is a little too bland and repetitive. This is discouraging me to continue to write and the confidence in my ability has dwindled dramatically.

Which leads me to the questions. Have you ever been in this position? What did you do to combat it? How do you feel about your project now? What are your experiences with this?

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

What you do is keep writing. But not just write, and write, and write; you'll end up treading water, unless you can get some help to identify what might be wrong with your writing.

If you're stuck while writing actual chapters, then you probably need to step back from the level of writing actual prose, and focus more on story development. Try working out the plot structure: this happens, therefore this happens, but then this thwarts it, causing this character to do this, etc.

Don't try to do things that are too complex or advanced. You'll do better if you master the simple stuff (single protagonist, straightforward story structure) before doing complex things like multiple POVs, interleaved timelines, whatever.

Sometimes you need to throw it away and start over. I threw out the entire last four chapters of my novel several months ago because it just wasn't working, and the new ending is much better.

 

[Penpilot]

What Benjamin said.

I went through something similar to you. To give you a little perspective, here's a little of what I've gone through. My first novel, I pushed through and finished it, then did three major rewrites. In the last draft, the word count was around 275K. It had 6 pov characters and was a huge mess that I didn't really know how to fix.

While I was writing the novel I was also studying writing by reading lots of books on the craft, specifically structure. I had a bunch of new tools that I didn't really get to apply to the first novel, hence why it was a mess. I weighed my options and came to the conclusion that the best thing for me as a developing writer was to chalk the novel up to a learning experience and move on to the next project.

My second novel, I got to apply all those things I studied about the craft and learned while writing the first novel and put them into structuring the new story. I kept it simple. One major POV character and one minor one that only has a handful of scenes in a sub-plot. The current word count is 95k and as I'm finishing up my third draft of it. I think it's achieving what I wanted it to. It's no way near perfect, but the problems I have now, I have the skills to fix them. I know how to fix them, and although the task in fixing my story isn't easy, it's very doable in my eyes.

Basically I became a better writer.

While I was writing my second book I was still studying the craft and now have even more skills to apply to my next project. I look back at my first novel now, and I think I know how to fix it, but I don't plan on going back any time soon. I love that world. I love the characters, but right now, I think in order for me to develop even further, I should be writing new things. And so I'm planning out my third novel. Again, it's going to be tough, but I've refined my process and, for the most part, know what things I should think out in the planning stages to make the story come out closer to what I envision. I pan on tackling two major POVs and one minor.

Now, because I've written two novels from beginning to end, it's not a matter of if I'll finish the story any more. It's about how good I can make the story, and for the most part I think I can deal with the problems that will inevitably pop up. It won't be easy, but I'm up for the challenge, because I have experience under my belt, experience gained because I knew when it was time to move on. I realized sometimes your skills will only allow you to take a story so far, and sometimes working on something for far too long stagnates you as a writer. Starting fresh allows you to apply your gained experience without having to deal with the clutter of past mistakes.

Please don't take this as me telling you to give up on your story. I'm not. But sometimes it's helpful to step back and write something else for a bit so you can gain some perspective.

 

[Lorna]

I've been working on my current project for two years. It started out hopelessly ambitious- two interwoven POV's spanning over 6 150, 000 words novels. I got overwhelmed and nearly gave up. Then I got ruthless. I decided to make one of the characters the MC and cut most of the other story. I asked myself 'what is the core of this book?' I took the key events and plotted them into a trilogy and got rid of everything else. In the process of drafting my first novel I decided to get rid of the second POV altogether. I now have a manageable WIP at 68,000 words and am working on the third draft. The story is complete. I'm working on polishing it to the best of my ability with the help from other people's critiques.

I find when I keep hitting walls, losing enthusiasm, knowing something doesn't feel right- it's an intuition you develop I need to sit back and reassess the whole. Try to isolate the core of the plot, what's driving the characters, why should the reader care? If you're bored by your plot, your readers will be.

You mentioned you feel your writing is 'bland and repetitive.' It might be worth taking some time out to do some reading and work on your style, then return and redraft from the beginning.

 

[FireBird]

If I were in your position I would find someone I trust to give good feedback and I would ask them to read what you've written. We are often the worst critics of our own work so a second party really helps.

 

[phoenixwings]

I have restarted my third draft three times while fighting the urge to throw what I have away and start from the very beginning but I am asking myself whether it is the thought of starting afresh or if I am just looking at it as an escape mechanism.

My second draft focused on one POV and was pretty straight forward to write as I was in her head a lot and knew what she was going through during the process of her journey. My very first draft was three POV's and I found that it intrigued me to keep writing and I swear by the fact that if I'm not spurred on by what's happening then there's a huge possibility that whoever reads it might find it boring too.

I understand that it's important not to complicate things, this is my main reason, in my head that I'm asking myself questions like 'Will the reader want to read on if I do this?' or, 'Is that scene really necessary?' etc. I am trying to look at things from outside the box, both from a writer's view and that of a reader's.

I agree that we ourselves are our own worst critics, it can be a nightmare to write when that negative voice is in your head telling you it's nonsense and that nobody will ever want to read such rubbish (that's what runs through my head anyways). Trouble is, most of my family think what I do in my spare time is a waste and wouldn't read anything anyway and I don't feel like I can turn to any of my friends because I'm worried that my suspicions are true and that maybe I'm no good after all.

I am currently researching as I'm not writing but I want to do something productive while I think through what to do.

 

[The Dark One]

If you know it's repetitive, there's a fairly obvious thing you can do to improve it...cut out the repetition. I'll bet a lot of good will flow from that. One of my favourite things, as a writer, is when I realise that a passage isn't working and I rewrite it into something really strong. This sort of thing is critical in maintaining a reader's (or a publisher's) attention.

Another thing to bear in mind - maybe you know in your heart of hearts that the story just doesn't have enough legs. What that probably means is that you are developing judgment as a storyteller.

Virtually no first novels ever get published (by commercial publishers). It usually takes three to four novels before you start to master the art so don't flog a dead horse. Move on.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

One particular stumbling block that I have is looking at a passage or chapter, thinking to myself "This could be better, but it would be too much work." Whenever that happens, I know that the right path is to go back and fix it.

 

[Zero Angel]

My biggest stumbling block was the only time I had ever lost a portion of my stories to computer shut down in the last ten years. I had just started the beginning of Chapter 4 and I wrote one of the best passages. I finished this passage and I was like, "HOLY CRAP DID I JUST WRITE THAT?" and then my computer shut down and I lost it.

I must have tried that passage over a dozen times and for the longest time I couldn't even get to the point that I was happy with it, let alone to the point I had it before. I finally achieved getting it to the point I was OK with it before I released my novel, but this was one of the worst things I've had to go through with stumbling blocks. I still am annoyed with the passage just because I know it is a shadow of what it could have been.