Discouraged in Writing? Start Here!
Let’s see if this sounds familiar: you’re staring at your screen, fingers on the keyboard, and you are so ready to start writing. You can see the scenes play out in your head, you can hear your characters’ voices, and you feel like you could step right into the story. But…turning those ideas and visions into real words feels like pushing on a glacier. You get antsy. You sit there for a long time, your fingers frozen in place. Or maybe you pace back and forth or go grab a cookie. Maybe you write a sentence, or even a few pages. Or maybe you walk away from a blank page, promising to come back to it later.
Are you experiencing something like that? That’s where I was. The first time I sat down to write a novel, I managed to write a page and a half over the span of several torturous hours. It was not fun. And the real kicker? When I read what I wrote, I didn’t like it. Not at all. I was bitterly disappointed, and nothing seemed to improve after several difficult rounds. So, I gave up.
Until things changed.
I went from dreading my writing time to loving it. How? That’s what this post (and others associated with it) are about. Hopefully, the tips and ideas here can help you avoid some of the trial-and-error and happenstance that got me through it. So, start here, and then explore some of the other posts for more details.
Let’s set up a baseline
Every writer has a process. It’s not always going to be the same process for every work, and it will likely change over time. But when you’re just starting out, you may find it difficult to discern which parts of your nascent process are working, and which ones aren’t.
When I began, I was already an avid reader, and I tried to prepare for writing by diving into Stephen King’s On Writing and Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, and various other books and sites. Those resources helped, for sure, but much of the advice that I encountered encouraged an organic, free-wheeling approach, one where you just sit down and write. That didn’t work for me, and it might not work for you, either. And some other sources, especially little blurbs you might encounter in places like Pinterest or Reddit, might encourage highly specific, rigid approaches. Some of those might work for you, but you’ll almost certainly have to tweak them to fit your needs.
Because a writer’s process is so specific to who they are and where they’re at in their journey, I’m going to focus on delivering many different options to consider and try, all to help you build your own process and let it evolve as you go. To do that, we’ll look at four core elements of writing and explore ways to improve your writing experience.
I’ll break this out into familiar categories, which I’ve named a bit differently to squeeze an acronym out of it: people (characters), action (the plot), words (the structures and flow of writing), and setting: PAWS. Now you can think of this as a friendly dog or cat helping you along. I was originally going to use Orson Scott Card’s MICE quotient here, but that focuses more on checking that a story has meaning by determining if elements change from beginning to end (I’ll go deeper into that kind of thing with editing). So, let’s stick with PAWS.
People
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that your characters are the most important part of your story. You can make a story driven by ideas, plots, or even places (Isaac Asimov famously pulled off idea-based storytelling), but it’s going to be much harder to connect your audience with something like a mushroom planet or a balloon-based fantasy economy without well-formed characters for your readers to empathize with.
In my first forays into writing, I made my characters tools of the plot instead of the drivers of the plot. That, as it turned out, was one of the biggest issues that made my writing a joyless slog. Trust me: it’s much more fun and rewarding to develop deep characters and have them drive the plot. So, how do we determine if you need to develop your characters more? And how can you do it? Bulleted list time!
Do a character sheet. This might seem like busywork, but filling out these kinds of sheets (even partially) will help your characters feel more real to you, and that will come out in your writing. Here’s a link to a character sheet that I made, based on a bunch of sources I cobbled together: feel free to download it or print it out. You can find others out there, too, including ones that are less complicated (or more complicated). Now, before you feel daunted by the dozens of entries on these sheets, here are a couple of pieces of advice: 1. You don’t have to fill these sheets out completely (I’ve never actually filled one out entirely, and I’m quite a completionist) - they’re meant to be a guide to getting to know your characters: it’s less like a tax form and more like a dating profile. And 2. Most of the information on these sheets will never end up in your story: your character is like an iceberg, and most of this information will sit under the surface.
Personality profiles. Personality tests are a Big Thing: Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, astrology (to a certain extent), and more. The cool thing about using these? It doesn’t matter how much you buy in to them for real people: they’re great tools for character-building and character interactions. I’d advise you to pick a favorite (I use the Enneagram, which I go deeper into here (along with more details on other systems)) and go for it. There are fields for personality profiles in many character sheets, including mine, but starting with personality typology can be best if you find a character sheet daunting.
Run your character through a mundane situation. Take your character(s) and walk them through an everyday thing. Have them go to class, get groceries, shop for a phone, etc. If you find it easy to draw out their quirks or traits in a simple scenario, you’ve probably got a solid character. You can write this down as a short scene or story, or just play it out in your head.
Run your character through a fictional scenario that you’re familiar with. Take one of your favorite books, films, or other media, and put your character into a crucial scene, perhaps in the protagonist’s shoes. What do they do? Do they succeed? How? Do they fail? What’s their reaction? Do this a couple of different ways to stress-test your character and see if you know enough about them.
Write some fan fiction. I’m going to come back to this one a few times, because it actually helped me a lot. When you use characters that someone else has come up with (or invent a character and put them into someone else’s world or plot), it acts as a kind of scientific control, removing variables and letting you play in a low-pressure sandbox. This can be a controversial topic in writing, so I have a whole post about it here (and the post includes some alternatives to get the benefits without writing actual fan fiction).
You can also write “fan fiction” of your own works. Is there a character or character interaction (or a scene or plot point) giving you trouble? Try writing little stories that explore the possibilities. For example: I had an early story with a “meet-cute” interaction; there were so many different ways to make it happen, so I decided to write a bunch of them as short, self-contained stories. It was a fun exercise that not only helped me nail down which version I wanted but helped develop my characters in ways I couldn’t have done otherwise.
Keep authenticity in mind. If you’re focusing on characters who come from a different demographic or background than you, make a solid effort to understand and empathize with those characters: read books by people from the demographic in question, read books about the demographic in question, watch online content from people in the demographic, get to know people from the demographic (which is just a good idea in general), research the history and culture of the demographic. I’m sure you can find plenty of infamous examples of otherwise well-regarded books that awkwardly failed to represent people different from the author.
And keep authenticity in mind even if you’re firmly in the speculative realm (sci-fi or fantasy). Put thought into your characters’ places in society. Especially with fantasy, check how the real world functioned at the same social/technological level, and take that into account, as it will up-level your authenticity. And if your character(s) would be out of place in the real world, come up with the reasons for that (you never have to put those reasons in your story, but knowing them will do wonders).
Action
Do you have your story figured out? Do you have an outline or a summary? Do you know the ending? Or are you playing it by ear and figuring it out as you go? You’ll probably see advice that tells you to take one specific approach, anywhere between ‘you must have your entire story planned out with a detailed outline!’ to ‘you can’t be creative if you’re planning things out, you have to let your ideas flow onto the page!’ So, where should you be on that spectrum? That’s up to you. But how do you find out what works best for you?
When I started, most of the advice I read discouraged outlining and planning. I had a general idea of my plot (in the form of crystal-clear scenes strung together with fog), and I tried to just…go with it. But that didn’t work for me. I needed more structure: I needed outlines and notes and plans. After a few years of writing, I’ve found that I don’t need that same level of structure, especially because I let my characters do some of the legwork for me. You might be like I was, or you might be in an entirely different spot. How do you tell if your plot is turning your writing into a slog, and what do you do about it? Let’s dive into another bulleted list and, spoiler alert, it’s going to have some similarities with the previous list:
Make an outline: okay, this is probably pretty obvious, but there are some sources that will explicitly advise against it. If you don’t like the idea of building an outline, you could try something visual, like a flowchart or a little comic. You can also make your outline dead simple by just writing down a short (even single sentence) summary of what’s in each of your story’s chapters or acts (see the next point).
Use a classic narrative flow. There are a few different ways to look at this: 3-act structure, 4-act structure, 7-act structure, etc. I personally like the Save the Cat! one, which has 15 “beats” to it. Now, you don’t have to follow one of these narrative flows, but it’s a good idea to at least use one as a guide. Pick one of the structures and fill in a brief blurb for each step that corresponds to your plot (or explicitly identify where your plot differs). If your plot is too far off from one of these flows, it could be a sign that it needs more work.
What type of story are you writing? I resisted labeling my types of stories, but doing so can really help ground your plot. I may eventually go deeper into this with its own post. But for now, I’ll point you to three different “type” lists that you can use. The idea here is to look through these lists, select which one your story matches, and use that to ground your narrative (i.e. you can identify where your plot wanders away or disconnects from the core plot, and adjust accordingly):
Christopher Booker’s 7 Basic Plots: these are high level plots, and your story “should” fit into one of them. Since there’s only seven of them, I’ll list them here: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Google this for resources on the subject or pick up Booker’s book to dive deeper.
Ronald Tobias’ 20 Master Plots: this was the one I ended up using; I’d already written my story, identified it as the “Escape” type (which would likely fit as Booker’s Voyage and Return type), and used that to tweak several plot points that strayed from the fundamental story. You can find a list of the 20 plots here or pick up Tobias’ book for a deeper dive.
Georges Polti’s 36 Dramatic Situations: these are a little trickier, as they can apply to the story overall or to scenes within a story. I’d recommend using these only if you already have one of the 7 or 20 types above matched with your story. Polti’s situations can help ground individual plot arcs or even scenes, letting you string several of them together to build the plot type.
Make your characters your partners. It’s important for your characters to have agency in a story, rather than have the plot dictate what they do. If you know your characters well enough (see the “People” section above), you’ll feel when a plot point isn’t authentic to your characters. When your characters are helping you through the plot, it becomes more engaging for you, as the author, and it’ll show in your story.
Don’t fall into the Mystery Box Trap. This might be a bit controversial, but since this problem has come up in some very prominent works, it’s a good thing to keep in mind. In the mystery box storytelling method, you set up key unknowns in your plot to keep your readers in suspense. It can make your story highly engaging, but there’s a catch: the Mystery Box Trap. The Mystery Box Trap happens when you, the author, get caught up in the suspense. In other words: figure out your ending/resolution early on. Otherwise, you might write yourself into a corner or end up with a disappointing conclusion.
In a broader sense, don’t fall into the Escalation or Wilderness Traps. In the Escalation Trap, your story gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and suddenly you can’t fit all of the threads into a satisfying resolution (I can think of a couple of series that went this way, especially by adding more and more character perspectives). And in the Wilderness Trap, you wander and wander with your plot until you’re entirely lost and don’t know how to get back. I’ve seen this happen in a couple of published works that I’ve read: it’s clear that the author either didn’t plan an ending or got caught up in so many side plots that the story got away from them. You don’t need to have detailed outlines to avoid these traps, but it’s a good idea to have some understanding of where your stories are going, so you don’t end up having to rework or rewrite large portions of your work.
Write some fan fiction. See, I came back to this already. When you write with characters and settings that someone else has come up with, it can become a pure exercise in plotting and scene-building, since everything else is already established. Just like with a character focus, you’re playing in a low-pressure sandbox. Dive into this topic deeper here (and again, I have some options there that let you get the benefits of fan fiction without writing actual fan fiction).
To mention it again, you can write “fan fiction” of your own works. Is there a scene, a plot point, or even a type of scene giving you trouble? Try writing little stories that explore these ideas. To use the same example as before, I had an early story with a “meet-cute” interaction: it was a type of plot point that I’d never written before, so writing a bunch of example mini-stories helped me practice, and provided a library of content to draw from for the future. This can also work wonders with any type of scene that hits hard: big arguments, fight scenes, intimate/sex scenes, chases, confessions of love, the story’s climax, and more: taking the mini-stories approach can help you pick which version you want, give you more options for future edits or other stories, and also help you find out what kinds of scenes you like writing best (and which ones you don’t).
Words
When you look back at what you’ve written, you might find yourself in the same situation I used to be in: you don’t like what you wrote. It might sound amateurish, toneless, or just plain bad. And that’s okay. The list below can help you get through this:
Your first drafts will probably suck. Don’t get me wrong: you might churn out an early draft that really works. But in many cases, it will feel like it’s nowhere near what you want. And that’s not uncommon: many of your favorite books likely started out as versions that the authors thought of as garbage. So, take this as permission to dislike what you’ve written: accept it, and keep going. Lean on your characters and on your ideas to get those early words out. Editing is what will shape the early stuff into magic.
Keep reading: you’ll see this advice over and over and over, and it really does help. Take time to read, whether it’s just a few pages before you go to bed, an audio book during your commute, or setting aside a big chunk of time on a weekend to sit with a cup of tea and devour a book. Reading will help your writing, hands down.
Write by the rules…mostly. There are plenty of authors out there who can get away with full on felonies against the expected structures of the written word. You might be one of them. But you shouldn’t count on it. So, unless you have supreme confidence in your linguistic skills, stick to the rules regarding sentence structures, punctuation, dialogue, and more. Writing is a form of communication, and communication is best when it is clear. And the rules help you achieve that. That being said, some of the rules hammered into you over the years may be outdated. Like starting sentences with “and,” or ending sentences with prepositions. So, how can you tell if you’re bending the rules too much (or not enough)? Check out the next couple of points:
Do at least one read-aloud editing session. I resisted this like nothing else; I’d sit at my computer, awkwardly trying to speak the words aloud. It felt so weird to just…talk out loud in an otherwise empty room. There were times where I’d start speaking, shake my head, and move on to something else. But it actually works. You catch so much in a read-aloud editing session that you don’t notice when silently editing. I’ll admit that it’s still hard for me to get going with a read-aloud, but once I do, it’s pretty easy to keep going. So definitely try it; it’ll help!
Write a draft in Comic Sans for editing. I think I saw this as a tip on Pinterest or Reddit or something, and I thought it was ridiculous, but several people responded that it seemed to help. So I tried it, and it certainly did seem like I caught more issues as I did read-through edits. It may just be some kind of psychological placebo effect, but it’s worth a shot. Just remember to change it back to a sane font before sending it out anywhere!
Editing is your friend. You’ll likely spend a lot more time editing than writing. And that’s to be expected. It might seem daunting, but editing can be fun, especially as you see passages and dialogue mature. If you want to know more, I have a separate page on the topic here.
When you edit, be brutal. I recommend the book Murder Your Darlings: And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser by Roy Peter Clark. To serve your story and your readers (and your main characters), you must be willing to be ruthless with editing. Cut entire scenes, entire subplots, and characters. You can always save what you cut, either in earlier revisions or separate documents; hopefully doing that will make it easier to slash into your narratives.
Use beta readers. Family and friends make for a good start, but you might want to invest in an independent beta reader. Good ones can run a few hundred dollars for a longer manuscript, but they can find things that you and those close to you will miss. Or if you have acquaintances that are avid readers, one might be willing to give you feedback (depending on your relationship with that person, it’s a good idea to offer compensation for their time and efforts, whether that’s monetary, culinary, or via some other gift). I used Fiverr to find a couple of beta readers: one of them gave excellent and detailed critical feedback in a report, while the other’s report felt more like a feel-good validation. I also cover this on the editing page.
Setting
Depending on your type of story, your setting could be anywhere from dead simple to enormously complex. And the setting’s importance to the narrative can vary wildly. So, let’s go through one last list to review your settings.
How important is your setting? Is your setting just a backdrop to the story, is it critical to your story, or does it act as a kind of character in the story? A good way to check this is to take your character and plot and put it into a different setting: a different time period, a different country, swapping urban for rural (or vice versa), putting it on a space station, locking it in an office building, etc. Ask how much about the story you have to change to adjust it to a new setting. If the answer is “a lot,” your setting may truly be key to your story.
Go deeper. As with characters, it’s a good idea to figure out more depth to your setting than you’d ever bother to explicitly include in your story. There are some guides out there that can give you lists of topics to check in your setting…and as with character sheets, you really don’t have to fill it all out. It’s really about making your setting a living, breathing place for you. Here are some topics to potentially explore:
What is the history of your setting?
What do seasons and weather look like?
What are social expectations around things like age, gender, education, occupations, etc.?
How do people get around in your setting?
What is the geography of your setting, and how do the characters interact with it?
What are different factions of people in your setting? Are they different socioeconomic classes? Races or species? Political groups? Geographic groups?
What do people do for work? What do people visit the setting for?
Is this place old, new, both, or something else?
What are the best and worst things that happen in your setting?
Imagine yourself in your setting. What places would you visit? Who would you visit? What would you eat? Where would you sleep? As with a lot of this deeper exploration, little to none of it has to end up in your story, but it will make the setting much more real and easy to navigate for you.
If your setting is giving you trouble, try making it familiar. Start with somewhere very familiar: a school you went to (or are attending now), a hometown, a place you visit regularly, the city you live in, the building you live in, etc. Then tweak it into your genre: if you’re writing historical fiction, find out what your familiar setting was like back then (or find a similar one). If you’re writing fantasy or sci-fi, adjust the architecture, technology, terminologies, and more to match.
Keep authenticity in mind. Yep, as with characters, it’s important to bring authenticity to your settings. By going deeper, from a few points above, you’ll accomplish a lot of that. But if you’re using a real setting (or a fictional setting meant to be a stand-in for a real place), it would be best to dig further into the real place. Read about its history, its people, its food, its politics, and more. Visit the place, if you can. You’ll likely enjoy the process of diving deeper into your chosen setting. If you don’t enjoy it, it might be a sign to switch things up.
And keep authenticity in mind even if you’re firmly in the speculative realm (sci-fi or fantasy). I read a fantasy novel recently that ran into this issue: the author made some choices that, on the surface, addressed modern sensibilities, but felt entirely out of place in the social/technological level of the setting. That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but the author didn’t address it, and it smashed my suspension of disbelief. So, if you’re creating a story that matches up with a particular time period, check into how the real world functioned at the equivalent social/technological level. And if you’re going to radically change the paradigms from that period (whether that’s social, economic, technological, etc.), make sure you know how your societies and people compensate for those change (i.e. if you have a fantasy society full of scholars, where do they get their food? In the real world, most of the population labored in agriculture for most of history, so how do you compensate for that?). You don’t have to provide an exposition bomb to cover yourself, but if you’re aware of it, it will likely come through. This also applies to future-set worlds: put thought into how people and societies will adapt to new technological and social realities…and if you’re looking into the past to harvest socio-political ideas, make sure you think hard about how those systems would adapt to a future world.
Conclusion
Hopefully, something in the PAWS lists above will give you ideas to get unstuck, or to go in a better-feeling direction. If you had to take away just three points from here, they would be:
Get to know your characters; they’re the ones who drive your story, and can tell you when the narrative feels right.
Experiment with pieces of your story in other contexts: stress-test them to identify strengths and weaknesses.
Be ready and willing to slash and burn pieces of your story (you can always save those cut-up pieces for other works, and I highly recommend doing that!).
To dive deeper, here are some pages on editing, using fan fiction as a tool, using the Enneagram, and a breakdown of my process.