Discouraged in Writing? Start Here!
Let’s see if this sounds familiar: you’re sitting in front of the screen, fingers on the keyboard, and you’re absolutely ready to start writing. You know what you want to write; you can see the scenes play out in your head. You hear your characters’ voices and practically feel their environment. But…getting that information to translate into real words is like pushing on a glacier. You get antsy. You sit there for a long time, or maybe you pace back and forth or go grab a cookie. Maybe you write a sentence, or maybe even three. Perhaps you manage to get a page or more. Or perhaps you walk away from a blank page, promising to come back to it later.
That’s where I was. The first time I really sat down to write a novel, I managed to write a page and a half over the span of several hours. And every moment of it felt torturous. But the real kicker? When I read what I wrote, I didn’t like it at all. Talk about bitter disappointment. I went back again and again, but I saw no improvement. So, I gave up.
Until things changed.
So, if you’re in that boat, let’s dive into what we can do about it.
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 might change over time. I can attest to that. But when you start out, your process will be in flux, and it can be hard to figure out what parts of it are working, and which ones aren’t.
When I began, I was already an avid reader, and I’d read Stephen King’s On Writing, Orson Scott Card’s How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, and other books on writing. Those books helped, 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.
So, let’s break this out into four 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 a friendly dog or cat helping out with this. I was originally tempted 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. 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 did it), but it’s going to be harder to connect your audience with a mushroom planet or a balloon-based economy without well-formed characters to connect with.
I’ll tell you right now that this was the biggest issue with my first forays into writing. In the beginning, I’d made my characters tools of the plot instead of the drivers of the plot. So how do you find out if you need to work on your characters, and how do you do it? Bulleted list time!
Do a character sheet. Here’s a link to one that I made, based on a bunch of sources I cobbled together. You can find others out there, too, including ones that are less complicated…or more complicated. Filling out these kinds of sheets will help your characters feel more real to you, and that will come out in your writing. But before you start or feel daunted by long sheets, 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, 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 extra information will be floating under the surface.
Personality profiles. Personality tests are a Big Thing: Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, astrology (to a certain extent), and even the one with the four animals (the exact animals seem to change from source to source). The cool thing about using these? It doesn’t matter how much you buy in to them (on a scale from True Believer to It’s Quackery): they’re great good tools for character-building, and even for character interaction. I’d advise you to pick a favorite (I use the Enneagram, and I’ll have a post about using it) and go for it. There are fields for personality profiles in many character sheets, including mine, but starting with this can be a good start if you find a character sheet daunting.
Run your character through a mundane situation. You can write this down, or just play it out in your head: 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.
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 keep coming back to this one, 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.
Keep authenticity in mind. If you’re focusing on characters who come from a different demographic or background than you (or people that you know very well), make sure that 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 our world functioned at the same social/technological level, and take that into account, as it will up-level your authenticity. For instance, I read a very good fantasy novel recently, but the author made some choices that, on the surface, addressed modern sensibilities…but clotheslined my suspension of disbelief: if you’re going to radically change a major paradigm of a time period (whether that’s social, economic, technological, etc.), make sure you know how the society/people compensate for that change. You don’t have to provide an exposition bomb to cover yourself, but if you’re aware of it, it will likely come through.
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 do one particular thing, all the way from ‘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’d read discouraged outlining and planning. I had a general idea of my plot (a set 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 practice, I’ve found that I don’t need the 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 writing out 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 what’s in each of your story’s 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. Now, you don’t have to follow one of these narrative flows, but it’s a good idea to at least use it as a guide. So what you do here is simply take the structure 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 some more work.
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 them well enough, 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 hit some very prominent works, it’s a good thing to keep in mind. The mystery box storytelling method has you setting up a mysterious aspect of your story 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 doesn’t happen just by making a mystery box story, it 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 resolution.
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 it all into a good resolution. 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, where it’s clear that the author either didn’t plan an ending or got caught up in so many side plots that it 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.
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. 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 trash. 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 will be your friend.
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 probably 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 provided when it is clear. And the rules help you achieve that. That being said, some of the rules hammered into many of us aren’t nearly as critical. Like starting sentences with “and,” or ending a sentence with a preposition. Some of those rules are just outdated, while others are more like guidelines. How can you tell if you’re bending the rules too much (or not enough)? Check out the next couple of points:
When you edit, be brutal. I’d 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 ruthless with editing. Cut entire scenes, entire subplots, and characters.
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…read aloud in an otherwise empty room. There were times where I’d start talking, 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 just don’t catch 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 started to catch more issues as I edited. I don’t know why it works, if it actually works, or if it’s 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.
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 might 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 compensate them for their time, whether that’s monetary, culinary, or with some other gift).
Setting
Depending on your type of story, your setting could be anywhere between dead simple and extremely complex. And its importance can vary wildly. So, let’s go through one last list to review with your setting.
How important is your setting? Is your setting just a backdrop to the story, is it critical to your story, or is it even 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 areas 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,
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
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 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 especially 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 learning more about your chosen setting. If you don’t, it might be a sign to switch things up.
Conclusion
Hopefully, something in the PAWS lists above can give you some ideas to get unstuck…or to move in a new or better-feeling direction if you’re not stuck. I’ll have a post on my own method(s), if you want to run through a full process example. If I had to settle on three major takeaways, they would be:
Get to know your characters; they’re the ones who really drive your story, and can tell you and your readers when things feel 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).
To dive deeper, here are some pages on editing, using fan fiction as a tool, using the Enneagram, and a breakdown of my process.