Hitting a Hard Part vs The Story Isn't Working

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CJ Knightrey

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Hello everyone. I've been working on my current WIP for a while now and I feel like I've hit a wall. It's happened many times before and I just had to step back for a second and look at the piece as a whole and that usually helped me get back on track, but this time no matter what I do I just can't seem to figure out why things aren't working. This might be that I've hit a hard part and I just need to press on, which I think is most likely the case, but it made me start thinking. At what point does a story pass the 'this is just another hard part' to 'the story needs a massive overhaul' or it needs to be trunked?
 

CQuinlan

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Are you bored writing it or is your main worry not doing it justice? If it's the former, you may be in a spot of bother but if it's the later I don't think you have anything to worry about. I agree that looking at something as a whole can help but remember that just because it's a logical step in the plot that fits in nicer doesn't mean it's the only logical step that would fit in nicely.
 

Beachgirl

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Is this the first novel you've worked on? If yes, my advice would be to push through and write anything, even if it's crap. You can always go back and fix it later. You might even consider skipping ahead and writing some other scenes that could help spur you along, then go back and fill in the blank spots.

The other option is walk away for awhile and write something else, but you could run the risk of chronically stopping a WIP and never going back to it.
 

Niniva

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The single hardest thing in life is learning when to try harder and when to give up. I personally don't give up until there is no longer an option.
 

L.C. Blackwell

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Taking you at your word that you really are an obsessive outliner.... :) You might try walking away from the outline at this point, and give your characters some leeway. It's possible they're locked in too tightly.

Also possible: you're too much attached to a plot point or character or relationship that isn't working, and you keep trying to fit the rest of the story to it anyway.

Or: at 7500 words in, you're hitting the dreaded middle and finding there's not enough sustained conflict to drive things. I know, I know.... But one giant conflict doth not a sustained and rising conflict make. It can start off dramatically, and then sit there like a lump of bread dough where the yeast went flat.

There are more possibilities, but these might give you a few to kick around.

:)
 

GregThomas

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I usually stall on a story when I'm just trying to get the characters from point A to point B. It's when the plot is simply moving the characters because they have to move, rather then the characters making choices based on high stakes.

So ask yourself, "Are my characters just moving along because the plot says so, or are they moving a long because they have made a tough choice?"

If there's no real reason for a character to move forward, then you will usually hit a snag in the plot. There must always be conflict, the stakes must be getting higher, the risks must be getting larger, the suspense must be building.
 

Langadune

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Something that helps on occasion is to go back a page or two and rewrite those pages. I mean write again what you have already written... that helps get you back to the point where the writing was working and get's your creativity flowing a little again. Often, it's just the right jump start and by the time you get to where you left off last time, it just keeps flowing.
 

jaksen

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Try talking to your characters, or at least the MC or some pivotal character.

(Yeah, gimmicky, silly idea but it's just a suggestion.)

Take a walk and talk to him/her. No headphones, no music, no dog on a leash. No distractions. (Talk in your head or out loud, whichever.)

Or do it on the PC, on paper, hey, MC, what's up? Where am I going wrong? Or am I going wrong? What's your take on how this is going?

I have done this just a few times, and once my MC did say to me (Or I said to myself) "Wtf! Why did you have me get into that car? Like I'd do something like that!"

After some more profanity he settled down but I returned to my story and deleted about six pages. Finished the story, sold it.

(Btw, I am published only in shorts, but my shorts are longish, more like novellas. I don't keep track, but they're long.)
 

BethS

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Hello everyone. I've been working on my current WIP for a while now and I feel like I've hit a wall. It's happened many times before and I just had to step back for a second and look at the piece as a whole and that usually helped me get back on track, but this time no matter what I do I just can't seem to figure out why things aren't working. This might be that I've hit a hard part and I just need to press on, which I think is most likely the case, but it made me start thinking. At what point does a story pass the 'this is just another hard part' to 'the story needs a massive overhaul' or it needs to be trunked?

Try backing up to the last place it was going well and move in a different direction.
 

DarthPanda

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It doesn't necessarily mean the story isn't working, it could just be that you're not totally inspired with the scene you're on. I usually get stuck in action scenes (which I hate writing).

When I get stuck, I switch to 1st person (I'm writing in 3rd limited). It has worked for me so far without fail. My MC is a teenage girl who wouldn't be under the same pressures I am (as the author/narrator) to be grammatically correct and have an impressive adulty vocabulary, so it frees me up to write more loosely. Later I go back and switch the POV and polish up the writing.

If you're writing in 1st already, try switching 3rd, or from past tense to present. Sometimes it helps get over the ruts so you can just get the scene on "paper" and move on to the fun stuff. :)
 

brianjanuary

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Make sure that your major plot points are solid and in place. Then you can logically build up to each one. If you've really hit a solid wall, just make a few notes about what you'd like to happen and move on to the next section. Then come back later when things are clearer and fill in the blanks.
 

ralf58

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I agree with L.C. Blackwell that you might have your characters locked in too tightly. The times this has happened to me have been when I was trying to make a character do something I thought was necessary for the plot but which violated the basic personality I'd given the person--or when I didn't actually know my character well enough to know what he or she would do in a situation.
 

Julie Ambrose

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You might try walking away from the outline at this point, and give your characters some leeway. It's possible they're locked in too tightly.

Also possible: you're too much attached to a plot point or character or relationship that isn't working, and you keep trying to fit the rest of the story to it anyway.

I really agree with these points. I also like BethS's suggestion to back up to where you felt it was working, and try to take off again from there.

Often you only need to change something subtle to give the impetus you need. Chances are, if you're struggling to 'push through', so will a reader be.

Having said that, I sometimes find when I'm too close to a work I lose the ability to tell which parts are faltering. Often on review it's precisely those 'slog-through' sections that do their job and the faster-written sections that need most work. So don't trash anything yet. Besides, even high-conflict narratives need quieter moments for balance and contrast. A bit of a breather may help you judge which applies.

Hope this helps,
Julie
 

Layla Nahar

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I had this problem. I ended up cutting my chapter and starting it again. Hasn't been *easy* going since then, but at least it is going!
 

rwm4768

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I'm in the dreaded middle of a book right now. The first part flowed freely, but this part is difficult to write. I'm not sure what it is.
 

Max Vaehling

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Good question, really. I think there's a thin line or a slippery slope between the two, and you won't know for sure until the section is finished and it either sucks or it doesn't.

Do you know where you want to go with the story? If so, do you have the feeling you're still going there? If so, do you have a feeling you're going there because your plot demands it or because you feel obliged to stick to that general idea? Are your characters still driven by the story or just moving along with it, like Greg said? Or, along the lines of that writing tip from the South park guys a while back, are your beats connected by "and then" (bad) or "and because of that, this happened" (good)?

As long as the plot drives your characters' decisions, the decisions have consequences and the whole thing is moving in the right direction, you're safe and the thing you're not writing isprobably just something that needs to happen but that you're not into, in which case you can choose to push through or avoid that thing and find another way to get to where you need to go. Short vut: Is that thing you don't want to write really needed for moving the plot along? Maybe you can cut it altogether? Otherwise, you'll have to get back to where the plot and the character motivations last worked together.

But again: thin line, often hard to tell, especially from an insider's perspective.
 

GiantRampagingPencil

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What works for me is to really get into the nitty-gritty of things. I just finished working out a section that had me tied into knots for the longest time.

Humanity had built a powerful weapon that could turn the tide of the war. The problem was that the world where it had been built had rebelled. They had to retrieve the weapon without alerting the rebels and giving them time to destroy it.

The MC had a plan to disguise his space ship, reach the enemy space dock and make off with it. My problem was that it seemed far too simple an idea to really construct an interesting subplot around, let alone a climax so I dove into the details. What would MC see first (establishing shot), and feel. So they have made their ship look like and enemy ship--what happens when the enemy hails them? What could then go wrong? details, details, details Then the plot began to flow. Don't know if that makes sense, but it helps me.
 

ccarver30

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I hit this wall with BOTH of my WIPs recently and I found that I just have to confront the wall, throw a rope over and climb. I made myself write SOMEthing just to get over the hump.

I really like the advice of taking a walk with your character too. :)
 

BethS

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I'm in the dreaded middle of a book right now. The first part flowed freely, but this part is difficult to write. I'm not sure what it is.

The middle is where you deepen conflicts and complicate everything. It's the place where you fingerpaint the walls and run with scissors. You make your protagonist's problems worse, worse, worse.

If that's not happening, this is probably your issue.
 

Mykall

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What works for me, is moving to another chapter, or writing a short story that still somehow fits within that world or scenario. I would pick completely random characters for this. It gets your mind off things and leads to unexpected results!
 

WriteMinded

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I've had that happen to me - several times. Once, I went back and started editing from the beginning. Along the way - a long trip - the answer came to me. Another time, I wrote out several different options - a lot of work - but again, the answer came to me. I guess you could say that instead of working on the problem, I worked around the edges of it. Then the walls came tumbling down.

This is very good advice.
Try backing up to the last place it was going well and move in a different direction.
 

Persei

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I agree with BethS, and I should add that if you feel difficulty to find the place when everything was going well, probably the story isn't working and you should take a look on the bigger picture.
 

GiddyUpGo

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About a year ago I hit a brick wall with my WIP. I stopped and wrote a completely different novel--new genre and everything--then when I was finished I went back to the first one and am now about 2/3rds of the way through it. Honestly, I can't even remember what the brick wall was all about in the first place. I guess working on that second project allowed me to view the old one with different eyes.
 

Niniva

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Honestly, I can't even remember what the brick wall was all about in the first place. I guess working on that second project allowed me to view the old one with different eyes.

It had proper time to bake... Never forget bake time.
 
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