So I’ve been rewriting my wip for maybe the 15th time in 3 years and I’ve kinda been struggling. First of all, I used to be able to write nearly 1600 words per chapter. Now I can barely reach 1200. However, my style has changed, and it’s harder to write more. I’m also constantly struggling to motivate myself and feel excited about writing this. I cannot start a new project at this time, so that can’t help me catch a break. What can I do?
Hey anon!
Sorry it took so long to get back to you - I really appreciate your patience :D
This is definitely something I've struggled with before too, and it's definitely hard. I feel ya.
One of the first things I would consider is this: is there any reason chapters need to be nearly 1600 words? A chapter is defined by a smaller story arc, and if that arc is something you regularly tell in 1100-1200ish words, is that necessarily a bad thing? I bring up this question because sometimes things feel bad because they seem worse than things were before, even if they're actually not, whereas sometimes things feel bad because they're not helping you achieve the things you want to achieve. If shorter chapters are killing your pacing or falling below genre expectations, then that's definitely something to work on (i'll get to some ideas in a minute), but if it just feels not great because you're used to longer chapters, I would say not to worry about it so much. (Knowing of course, that it's easier said than done).
This also seems like a situation where you could potentially benefit from enlisting some cheerleader betas. I know cheerleading gets a lot of flack because the point of betas is usually to help you revise your work, and just getting told the good parts doesn't help to change the things that aren't necessarily working. However. Getting told that your work is good, and having people point out the direct places where that's the case can help you finish the draft, and get excited to keep going - which means you can get to a place that you can do harder edits and all that. The point is, this could be a way to help you with motivation.
Another means of finding motivation is about setting up some kind of reward system to help jumpstart the reward process in your brain. Things like "for every x words I write, I get to watch an episode of whatever show I want, and I can either save or spend that watch time right now." Or, you can go the opposite approach. If the hard part is sitting down to write consistently, lower the bar. This sounds counterintuitive, but if you're trying to hit a wordcount that is too high for you right now, and you're consistently not making it, that's going to be demoralizing. Aim for a lower wordcount, one that you know you can consistently stick with, and make that your goal. When you accomplish something, your brain releases all those happy chemicals that make you want to do the thing again, or do something to release more of them. In a lot of cases, this is where motivation comes from. If you give yourself a way to feel accomplished, you'll likely be able to do more.
If you're feeling burnt out, another thing to do would be to take a short break (set a date to return to the project and stick with it) and watch/read/listen to other media. This is mostly to help refill your creative well. If you only do output and never do input, eventually you are going to run out of creative juice. By taking the time to refill, you are doing yourself a big favor.
Circling back to some tips for writing more, consider what the shorter wordcount may be causing you to leave out in terms of pacing within each chapter and in larger arcs. You've been existing with this project for several years now, and have rewritten it a bunch, so I imagine you probably have a sense for where you're trying to end up. Step back for a minute and think -- are there any elements that you've dropped from the story that you want to add back in? Any places where you don't have enough details because you already know the places and characters well enough that it didn't exactly occur to you as you were writing it that the audience doesn't inherently have that same image already? Also, what is the arc of each chapter -- the initial state, conflict, and change? What questions are you bringing up, and do you answer enough of previous chapters' questions that readers can feel like the story is moving forward?
Hopefully this gives you a starting place to jump off from. Happy writing!
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