Help (I've fallen and can't get up)!

[eve_doodle]

So many issues, where to start?

My first problem is that I have trouble finishing things. I find it easy to make outlines for countless fics, to start numerous 'first chapters' (I have like fifty, living on my hard drive. They multiply every time I look at them!) and then I end up leaving them somewhere in the dusty depths of my computer in favor of A Brand New Idea! I have no problem with one-shots, but I've never finished a multi-chaptered fic in my fan-writing life. I find that I lose attention quickly and the momentum (read: high) from writing the first couple of chapters quickly disappears after a while, resulting in an abandoned work. Any ideas on how to fix this?

My second problem is dialogue. There's too much of it! Several readers have commented that the plot progresses only through dialogue and moves at the speed of a snail, which is probably an insult to snails. Meeting the word count isn't the problem-- it's going way over it and still not reaching the resolution, which relates to my first problem.

Any help would be much appreciated!

Comments

[annotated_em]

*thoughtful* You mention that you outline, so... when you do that, do you ask yourself how/to what extent each of the outlined moments/scenes/conversations is advancing your plot? I tend to write fairly chatty things myself, and it's fun to let the characters just meander along, but sometimes that means I have to come back later and tighten things up.

Another thing to keep in mind is what a character wants to achieve at any given moment, and how his/her actions reflect that goal.

As for starting WIPs and abandoning them: are you a post-as-you-go person? If so, have you tried sitting on your project until it's completed? That might add to the excitement of finishing a multi-part thing.

The things you finish: do you write them in single sessions, or do you write them across multiple sessions? Do you write regularly, or sporadically? Speaking purely from my experience, I found that once I shifted from writing as the inspiration hit to writing regularly, it became a lot easier to sustain larger, multi-chaptered projects: writing even when I wasn't on fire trained me to be able to write whether I loved the project (or hated it).

[eve_doodle]

Another thing to keep in mind is what a character wants to achieve at any given moment, and how his/her actions reflect that goal. I need to frame this and stick it on my laptop screen. It sounds so simple when you point it out but I haven't exactly been keeping that in mind when I write.

If so, have you tried sitting on your project until it's completed? I am a horrible spur-of-the-moment poster. *hangs head in shame* Part of the reason why I'm so terrible at keeping my work to myself is that writing is so lonely. I want feedback now, to know if people want to read it or if they like it and want more. I will try to work harder on keeping my finger off of the trigger- it would probably help me actually finish something.

I guess my biggest question is: how do you get yourself to write regularly? I find that just sitting down and trying to write usually ends up with me staring at the screen for hours on end or randomly googling things. I think I'd need someone to nag me to get me to write properly *laughs*.

And thank you for all the help! I really appreciate your comment and now I have lots of awesome advice and ideas to think over in my head.

[annotated_em]

Hey, I totally understand the spur-of-the-moment posting! It's so much fun to share the new shiny thing! I have a wip-filter and a few first readers who get to see stuff that's in process and give me the squee and "what the heck, Em" responses that I can then use to spur myself onward... without having posted far and wide. And that's a lesson that came hard, honestly; my first fandom from lo these many years ago is littered with the things that seemed like a great idea and then petered out on me.

As for the writing regularly thing, I actually made it an inviolable part of my schedule. I'm a morning writer, so the first part of my day is me sitting down with my notebook and a pot of tea and writing for an hour (or more, but the hour is my minimum). That hour is for writing, and only for writing, and doesn't get sacrificed for other things. Sometimes what I write that hour isn't useful or gets scrapped or is pure self-indulgent drawerfic, but the important thing is to write. And sometimes what I write in that hour is things like character exploration, like a sort of thinking out loud.

What's most helpful to me about the writing-regularly thing is that it's a kind of treat thing. It's a self-reward; I have lots of other things on my plate, so taking an hour of my day for writing fanfic is completely self-indulgent of me. Thus I want that morning hour and get really cranky if something or someone interferes with it.

The other thing that is useful is to set a minimum wordcount goal. I draft longhand, so my minimum is a quarter of a page. I try to manage at least that much in an hour. Sometimes I do more! And sometimes I do less. But that's my target.

*ponders* If you're doing the random googling thing, you could try a program like Freedom that lets you shut your internet access down for a set period of time. I have to do that to myself when I'm working on my laptop, because I'm easily distracted that way.

[eve_doodle]

Oh, I definitely need a beta now to keep me from posting things impulsively.

"Sometimes what I write that hour isn't useful or gets scrapped or is pure self-indulgent drawerfic, but the important thing is to write."

That's something I've never thought about before, but it makes a lot of sense now! I've been trying to crank out at least 300 words every few days to add to my WIP but to write anything every day seems like it'll be easier to add to the word count in the long run.

I might have to try writing by hand if my procrastination keeps progressing at the same rate. *laughs* Even with internet blockers, I'm really persistent about watching cat videos. I hope I still remember how to write with a pencil...

[zippitgood]

I'm so in the same boat though I'm more of a pantser than you are it seems. I find I can't sit down and write unless I have an idea of what I want to happen in the next couple scenes I want to work on. I read this post about how an author went from writing 2000 words a day to 10000 words. You may want to give it a read too.

[eve_doodle]

OH MY GOD, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A MAGICAL (STRANGELY PRACTICAL) CURE FOR ALL MY ISSUES.

Thank you!

(I hope your own writing works out for you.)

[zippitgood]

I'm glad I could help and I hope it works out well for you!

[dhae_knight_1]

That's an amazing article. I forwarded it to my writer's group forthwidth. :-)

[zippitgood]

She also links to a few other posts of hers at the bottom that elaborate more on her writing process.

[dhae_knight_1]

Two things. I discovered the snowflake model about a year ago, and found it an absolutely invaluable way of working with things I just. can't. get. done.

Secondly, I have found it immensely helpful (via MiniNaNoWriMo) to set daily goals. Just 200 words a day adds up tremendously over time - and while some days you'll want to throw your keyboard through your screen because it's so bloody hard to write just 200 words, you'll find that other days the writing catches fire and before you know it you've written for 2 hours and gotten 2000 words down.

As for your second problem; try cutting out anything that doesn't progress the plot. If it doesn't pertain to your plot, or says something invaluable about the character or the relationship between characters, it's filler and needs to go. (As a general rule. Once you've got it under control, you can roll back some of the filler.)

[eve_doodle]

Oh, wow, the snowflake model sounds incredibly useful! Thanks for pointing it out; I can already see how I can use it to really start a fire under my butt and get my fics finished.

I haven't tried daily word counts (mostly because I am the Laziest Being On The Planet) but it sounds like a good idea and something that I should definitely strive towards.

I think that editing is one of the hardest parts of writing (other than getting started, haha), mostly because it's so painful to cut words that I spent so long laboring over....no wonder my plot doesn't move along at all!

Thank you so much for your advice! I can't wait to tackle my WIPs with all these new ideas.

[dhae_knight_1]

I've joined Words Count, and intend to take full advantage of them next month. Also someone mentioned Written? Kitten! which is seriously one of the more fun ways of boosting your wordcount. :-)

[eve_doodle]

Oh, both of those sound like fun! *adds to list*

[juliet316]

I'm in a similar boat as you in terms of not being able to finish anything (That's actually one of my goals for this year is to finish some of the fics I have on the docket), and I definitely hear you on the working on something and then jumping to the next Shiny plot bunny. Part of the problem is I took a very long layoff from the Internet and writing in general for most of 2011 and this month I'm just trying to get back into the swing of things.

This month I've just resolved to try and wrote at least something every day, even if it's just something from a comment fic comm or a scene from a fic in my head just to get back into the writing mode. Next month, I'm toying with simply picking a story from my WIP pile and just focus simply on that for the month with the occassional ficlet in between. Maybe resolving to focus on just one story at a time might help?

[eve_doodle]

(My 10 sees your 10!)

Oh, plot bunnies. Why must they be so shiny and amazing?

You're right- I've been jumping around all over the place, writing outlines, new one-shots and plunging into new fandoms that I haven't been giving my main WIP any attention at all. I definitely need to work on that and make an effort to work on it every day. Thanks for your help and I hope your own writing goes better too!

[vae]

What I find absolutely invaluable for finishing things is having a beta or first-reader who's prepared to read my updates as I go and cheer me on and talk fic to me, and never, ever post anything until it's completed. For the too much dialogue/not enough plot issue, that's where a beta is invaluable. Find one prepared to work with you and to be absolutely ruthless in recommending what you can cut out, and then hang onto them because they are rarer than gold nuggets.

What fandoms do you write in?

[eve_doodle]

I've never had a proper beta but now I wish I'd put one on my Christmas list! Sounds like a perfect solution to my instantaneous posting habit and my pacing. I've checked out the beta communities in DW but they don't seem all that active...I'll have to try LJ or even FF.Net next. *laughs*

I have one of the worst cases of fandom butterfly, so I write pretty much for everything I've ever read or seen. But my main WIP is for Naruto (the one I signed up to finish for Feb challenge) and I'm working on a side-series for FMA and... entertaining thoughts for a drabble series for Sherlock (S1). *g*

[vae]

You could always put a note on your next chapter posting to say that you're looking for a beta and ask people to contact you?

[eve_doodle]

Thanks!

[ishie]

Something I picked up from a writing class many millions of years ago was to rewrite individual scenes to completely avoid whatever it was I considered a weakness. So if my language is getting too flowery, I'd rewrite with words of only one syllable or no metaphors or action only. It takes a while and can be a bit frustrating at first but it's been massively rewarding to me and helps my writing voice skip into all kinds of new tracks. For your tons of dialogue/little momentum scenes, try doing it again with no one saying anything aloud at all?

[eve_doodle]

Oh, this sounds like a fabulous idea! An idea that will probably break my brain, but will probably make me a better writer. I need to definitely try this out the next time I'm writing.

I'd better go change my penname to Hemingway now...

[chibifukurou]

I'm not particularly good at finishing things either. I'm either banging out a few thousand words a day or not writing anything at all.
(And why can't my muse accept the fact that if I wrote 300 words a day I'd reach my goal of 100,000 words a year no problem?)

So my suggestion has more to do with keeping you story moving. Somebody explained this way of laying out a story that it keeps moving to me when I was struggling with not knowing what should come next in my story. Hopefully it will be helpful to you as well.

Write down the following aspects of your story; you don't have to write the scenes completely, but I suggest writing at least part of a scene for each story point so that you'll have an easier time coming back to the story later if your muse gets distracted:

STORY LAYOUT TEMPLATE:
Inciting Incident: This is the scene that makes you want to start out writing and will carry your story for the first little while.
First Plot Point: This is the scene that will start the main point of your story (I'll show an example below) By this point the reader should know all of the main characters.You're villain should have done something villainous, you protagonist should have proved their not a complete moron, etc.
Middle Plot Point: This is the scene that's leading up to the climax, and giving you an idea what to expect.
Climax: The villain and hero face off; The lovers kiss; whatever you want the climax of your story to be.
Close: The protaganist rides off into the sunset; they all live happily ever after, just something to let people know what happens after the story ends.

EXAMPLE STORY LAYOUT: (USING THE CINDERELLA FAIRY TALE)
Inciting Incident: Cinderella's father dies leaving her with his wife and his wife's daughters
Scenes 1-3: We are introduced to the prince, Cinderella, and get to know that Cinderella has a miserable life. We find out that whoever the Prince falls in love with at the ball is going to be his wife.
First Plot Point: Cinderella wants to go the ball and gets her Godmother's help
Scenes 4-6: Cinderella goes to the three balls and she and the prince fall madly in love, only to have Cinderella run off at the last minute.
Middle Plot Point: The Prince sets out to find the girl he fell in love with by trying her shoe on every woman in the country
Scene 7-8: The Evil Step-mother hides Cinderella so that the Prince can't find her. Once the Prince arrives the Step-sisters cut off their toes and heal respectively so that they can fit the shoe.
Climax: Disappointed, the Prince is about to leave when he finds Cinderella. She tries the shoe on and it's a perfect fit. Reunited and very much in love they share a kiss.
Close: The Prince whisks Cinderella away and they live Happily Ever After

[eve_doodle]

That outline makes so much sense. I've been having the same trouble with my outlines, mostly because I've been doing them on a chapter by chapter basis and I had no idea what to write in order to move the plot in the direction I wanted it to go.

I can't thank you enough for this!

[littlebutfierce]

I have no problem with one-shots, but I've never finished a multi-chaptered fic in my fan-writing life.

Maybe you're just not a longfic writer. That's not a bad thing! I'm not one, & I have finished lots of fic that I am generally proud of. :D There may be other issues w/structure & motivation & stuff that you might be able to get some help w/, like the things mentioned in the other comments. But at base, maybe your strengths are in writing one-shots. Nothing wrong w/that if so, y'know?

[eve_doodle]

I've never considered that before. *facepalm* I always thought I wasn't trying hard enough (which is true) but I've just never thought of the idea that longfic just isn't my thing. Huh. It makes a lot of sense now that I think of it. *g*

I think it's because a lot of Western literature/fiction is dominated by the idea of The Novel, so a multi-chapter 10k+ fic is what a lot of fic writers seem to think of as the ideal length (or at least I did).

Thank you for pointing it out! It makes me feel a lot better, I have to say.

[jesseszen]

I found that I did the most writing,AND it was much more fun for me if I just started cold and didn't have an outline or even an idea of plot or anything. Maybe you could try it out for fun. Just sit down and start writing. See where it leads!

[eve_doodle]

Oh, sounds like a good idea for the oneshot I'm working on. Thanks!