Going Nowhere?

[Daeldalus]

I am about 4k words into my current WIP(I know I write slow) and something feels off.
It feels as if everything I am doing in it leads nowhere at all. I mean I know where the story is headed and so I know what the little subtle clues(at least i hope they're subtle) mean and where they will lead the story in general. but when I try to read back through things as if I were a reader for the story, then it seems as if there is no anticipation, no questions that I just NEED to keep reading to get the answers for.

Is this simply because I know the answers that may keep a reader in the story or is it because of my inexperience and I am not writing well enough to keep myself in the story?

This happen to anyone else out there??
Should I try to find someone who knows their stuff to read my work and advise me at regular intervals?

 

[Butterfly]

Your first draft is about the bones of your book. The place where you get all your ideas on paper, and the basic structure of events sorted out. It will feel off because you are still working things out as it grows. New ideas will appear and you will find yourself taking new directions you never foresaw at the beginning. You will likely jump backwards and forwards as you go and as story threads develop and weave together.

Get your first draft done, it won't be perfect. First drafts very rarely are, and they are allowed to be imperfect even bad. it's the redrafting, editing, restructuring that will make the book.

Then start your second draft to sort out the issues that arise from the first.

 

[teacup]

Is this simply because I know the answers that may keep a reader in the story or is it because of my inexperience and I am not writing well enough to keep myself in the story?

It could be either or both. If the writing is good enough, there is enough tension and the story is interesting, I think it should still be a good read even if you do know the answers. Unanswered questions can help a story a lot, but if everyone is going to lose interest if they know the answers then no one would ever reread books.

Should I try to find someone who knows their stuff to read my work and advise me at regular intervals?

I have an arrangement like this with a member here (we swap chapters to edit/give feedback to and generally discuss the stories/help each other) and it works brilliantly for us.
I'm not sure how easy this will be to find - we just kind of fell into doing it. My advice would be to post on showcase now and then. You'll get lots of great feedback and you'll be able to improve on it that way.


Also, you don't have to worry too much about draft 1. You can do what Butterfly says and just write. I'd advise you to just get on with draft 1. Keep writing, but post your first scene or so on showcase, and learn from the critiques given. Keep writing more, and post more in showcase. If you continue to do this as you write, you will be constantly improving, and so when you go back to rewrite/polish stuff up, you will have a good set of skills as a writer to do your story justice.

 

[Feo Takahari]

What is your story about on the most basic level? To look at it from a different direction, if you stripped away every single fantasy element from your story, what story would you still be writing?

To give a personal example, one of my stories has a plot involving a living planet and the astronauts who explore it. Some become devoted to the planet, while others instinctively distrust it. But that's not really what it's about. Strip away all the fantasy, and it's a much simpler conflict--if being controlled will make you happy, is it still worth it to rebel against the control?

I ask because this might be a case where the reader isn't told what the story's really about. Try introducing that conflict earlier, and see if it makes your story more interesting.

 

[Twook00]

I've been dealing with this myself. I've just resigned to work on it regardless of how it feels to me. So you've lost the magic? Welcome to being a writer. This is where the wheat gets separated from the chaff. Just keep pushing. Finish the first draft and fix what needs fixed later. It will be far less intimidating that way since most of the story is already done. And if not, well, you've finished something. There's a lot to be said about that. Good luck to you!

 

[skip.knox]

I can't emphasize too much the importance of WTDT (Write The Damn Thing). Among the many aspects is this: only by writing the whole entire story will you wrestle with things like How To End It, right down to the final sentence. Or, Fluffy Middle Syndrome. Or, how to deal with something in Chapter 19 that can't possibly happen because of something you wrote in Chapter 3. In addition, I think you will discover there are different sorts of frustrations and rewards that fall at different points in the novel writing process. It's a bit like travel. You can imagine what Italy is like, but the actual experience is filled with little moments unique to you.

So just keep writing. A novel isn't a date, it's a marriage.

Disheartening Postscript: sometimes, the story just doesn't work. Be prepared. Every novelist has unfinished stories sitting in folders.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Daeldalus, I'm going to ask you a question that you need to ask your story. If you feel like you're going nowhere, and you have nothing to engage a reader, this really sucks, but you could be right. Just because you think they're all out to get you, doesn't mean they aren't. So ask this question -

Where is your conflict?

I'm not asking about the big, over-arcing plot conflict - though if you're having questions about that, it's never too early to starting thinking about it, imo. What I mean is, where is your conflict starting out? You say -

"when I try to read back through things as if I were a reader for the story, then it seems as if there is no anticipation, no questions that I just NEED to keep reading to get the answers for."

I find that introducing conflict at the get-go is what fires that anticipation, what gets readers asking questions (besides the dreaded "So what?"). It doesn't have to be major, life-or-death stuff, but it does need to be important to the characters and preferably important to the story in some way. Try that and see if it helps.

 

[AnneL]

You may be doing a lot of throat-clearing. Sometimes things get fuzzy and not urgent when there's too *much* stuff going on and the story is being pulled in all sorts of directions. Get it down to the essentials -- whose story is it, how will things have changed by the end -- and then prune like mad. You might have to keep writing a bit before you get to the point of knowing the essentials.

This pretty much happens to every writer at some point.