Where is My Story Hiding?

Every writer knows the moment when the glitter of a new idea has dulled and your story feels like it might be an unsalvageable mess. You start to wonder if you should put it aside for now, or maybe forever. I’m writing from experience because that’s where I was with my current WIP just a few weeks ago. After working on the novel for a year (I began the first draft in September 2024) I felt like I was going nowhere fast.

I was completely fed up with the story. I had gone back and forth between first and third person narration so many times that I was confusing myself. Without a settled point of view, I had no idea of the story’s structure so I was writing scenes with no sense of how they might fit into the overall story. While I was wresting with the mystery that is the heart of the story, I was fiddling around with ideas for the next novel I want to write, which is set in a world I’ve already written, making that story much easier to write than my WIP, which is set in a new world. I already knew the title of the second novel, and I had decided on the general premise a long time ago. All of this meant that the second novel was coming together easier than my WIP. I decided on a whim that I would put the mystery aside and focus on this other idea. I even considered how I would write the blog post explaining that for the first time in my career I was putting a book aside because I couldn’t see how to go forward. 

By the way, there is nothing wrong with setting one story aside to work on another if the second one is calling you with more intensity. Many writers do this. We need to write the story that is tugging at our brains and begging to be released, and sometimes that’s not the story we originally sat down to write. 

For reasons known only to my Muse, once I decided that I wasn’t going to write the mystery anymore, the mystery became clear. Go figure. I worked my way through the rough spots by trying some test runs, writing several scenes in both first person and third person, and I decided that first person was the way to go because it gave me the depth of character that I’m looking for. I was also finally able to plot how the mystery would come together step by step. I finally knew what clues and red herrings would be planted throughout the story. It took long enough, but better late than never.

I have this problem whenever I write a story set in a new world. It’s as if I have to learn how to construct a story all over again. When I begin a new project, I always begin with a burst of excitement. When I’m heading toward the end, I’m filled with a surge of momentum that pushes me through. It’s always the middle moments of writing a project that weighs me down, you know, the swampy, uncertain middle when I have a sense of the story I want to tell but I’m not sure how to pull it off, where things feel so hard and I’m certain it’s time to give up. 

Think Smaller, Not Bigger

One of the things weighing me down in my WIP is that I have a lot of ideas for themes and story arcs and I was trying to do too much. I had to back away from the big picture and focus on telling a good story. Instead of thinking “I’m writing a mystery novel” I narrowed my daily goal to writing one scene. Anne Lamott calls this writing what you can see through a one-inch picture frame. Sometimes that picture frame might contain a single scene or even a single paragraph. Shrinking the scope makes the work less overwhelming and reminds you that progress happens one word at a time.

Remember Your Why

This was a big one for me when I was ready to give up on my WIP. Why did I begin this project to begin with? I had the idea for this mystery for more than a year before I started writing it. I finished And Shadows Will Fall and The Swirl and Swing of Words first, and I was so excited after I finished SSW because it meant I could finally begin work on this Dark Academia mystery I had so much on my mind. 

Reconnecting with that spark was important to me. I journaled a bit about why I wanted to write this book in the first place, so that helped me find my motivation again. If you’re not into journaling you can keep a sticky note with your why in plain sight, even stuck to your computer, for those days when the urge to quit yells in your ear.

Change Your Approach

Once I understood that this was going to be a first person narrative written by the character looking back on his experiences at this strange college in coastal Maine, everything else fell into place. I had tried writing in third person limited, then first person point of view where the character told his story in letters. One day, out of frustration, I grabbed a pencil and my notebook and started free writing about the college from the character’s point of view. Interestingly, that became the beginning of the story. Just letting myself write without any expectations freed my brain enough to allow me to find his voice, and the beginning of the story.

If you’re hitting a wall as I was, you may need to try a new way forward. Try changing your point of view. Try outlining the next few chapters, writing scenes out of order, or switching from typing to handwriting. A small change can shake loose creativity that’s stuck.

Give Yourself Permission to Write Badly

I’ve spoken about this one many times, and I’m sure I’ll talk about it many times more. Natalie Goldberg said that we should allow ourselves to write the worst junk in the world, and this is the most true writing advice I’ve heard. As writers, we need the freedom to put one word after the next without being overwhelmed by that annoying old scrunch-faced editor in our head. 

Perfectionism is such a creativity killer. We have to accept that our drafts are going to be imperfect. If we feel paralyzed by perfectionism, we’ll never write another word. You can’t fix what isn’t written, so give yourself the freedom to write something flawed and then polish it later. Jodi Picoult said, “You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” 

I’ve seen so many posts and videos about “How To Write a Book in 30 Days!” If that works for you, well done, you. I take anywhere from one to two years to write a book, especially one set in a new world. I’ve been working on my WIP for a year, and I’m only now feeling like I have a handle on the story. The book takes as long as it takes.

There’s no expiration date on our writing projects. We can work slowly, take breaks, and struggle along the way. The only way we fail is if we stop making progress. By showing up, by writing, by journaling when the story isn’t coming together, I finally discovered what I needed to bring this story to life. There’a a lot I’m still figuring out, but at least I feel like I know the frame of the story, which I didn’t before. When we’re writing a book, every finished page is a victory. Writing a novel is hard. It’s fun, but it’s hard.

I wish I were the kind of writer who could see the right way to tell a story from the beginning but I’m not. I have to try on different hats, different scarves, and different voices before I find the ones that match each new project. And that takes time.

I hope you’ve been enjoying these process posts. They are fascinating for me to write as I examine my own writing process in depth while I’m working my way through a new project. 

Categories: Creative Writing, Writing, Writing InspirationTags: creative writing, creative writing inspiration, writing, writing inspiration, writing tips