Hey there! I just came across this blog and im wondering if I could get some advice. I have a lot of trouble keeping motivation for a story. I'll have a new idea that im really excited about, ill write 10-20 pages of it, and then get bored of writing it. Any tips on how to keep myself invested in writing my own stories?
5 Reasons You Lost Interest in Your WIP, Plus Fixes!
It's not uncommon for writers to lose interest in their WIP. Staying on track, or getting back on track, are skills you'll acquire with time. Here are some of the reasons you might have lost interest in your WIP:
#1 - You're Not Sure Where the Story is Going. When you figure out a way into a story you're excited about, the beginning can be a piece of cake. It's all set up and inciting incident, which can be really really fun to write. But if you're not sure what needs to happen after the inciting incident, you can find yourself meandering and get bored quickly.
Fix - If you're writing a story that is plot-driven or a combination of plot-driven and character-driven (as most stories are these days), it may help to familiarize yourself with Basic Story Structure and also have a look at my post about How to Move a Story Forward.If you're writing a character-driven story, you can adhere to basic story structure or a more loose structure, but your character's arc will be the focus of the story. If you think plot and structure may be what's holding you back, you might spend time on my Plot & Story Structure post master list to read some of the other posts there.
#2 - Something Isn't Working. Stories are often like a house of cards in that one misplaced "card" can bring the whole thing crashing down. Sometimes you lose interest because an element or event didn't quite work, and you can feel in your gut that something's not right, so your brain interprets that as losing motivation. It's not really that you've lost interest in the story... it's that you've lost interest in the dead end path it's on.
Fix - Go back through what you’ve already written and look for something that’s not pulling its weight. It could be an unnecessary character dragging the story down, a subplot that is cluttering up the story or drawing attention away from the main plot, or it could be a scene/scenes that don’t add to the story. It could even be a combination of these things. If you can find it and fix it, your motivation may return.
#3 - You're Just Not in the Mood to Write. It could be that your interest in your WIP is just fine, you're just not in the mood to write. Our brains aren't always great at interpreting signals from our bodies, including other parts of our brain. The thirst signal is sometimes misinterpreted as hunger, which is why if you're feeling hungry when you shouldn't, you should try drinking a glass of water. Sometimes, in the same way, we're just not in the mood to write and our brains misinterpret that as a loss of interest in our WIP.
Fix - Consider what's going on in your life at the moment. Are you stressed? Are you distracted? Are you not feeling well? Sometimes you just need to give yourself a few days or weeks to let things resolve, and then you'll find your motivation has returned. Try doing things to Fill Your Creative Well in the meantime, or try some of the exercises in this post: Getting Unstuck: Motivation Beyond Mood Boards & Playlists
#4 - You're Overly Focused on Quality. One of the biggest WIP interest/motivation zappers is focusing too much on quality in your early drafts. If you're fixated on things like description, flow, theme, symbolism, grammar, etc. in your first draft, you're going to mentally
Fix - Remember, your early drafts should be more about getting the story down and working out the kinks. Don't worry so much about things like description, grammar, details, etc. until you've got all of that hammered out. And remember that the whole point of editing and revision is to polish your draft. You get the story down and make it pretty later.
#5 - You're Letting Yourself Get Distracted by New Ideas. The thrill of coming up with a new idea is part of the fun of being a writer. One of the pitfalls of being a writer is new ideas sometimes distract you from your WIP. We can be completely into our WIP, then a new idea comes along and our brains say, "Ooo! Look at the shiny pretty!" And off we go. Some writers, particularly seasoned ones, are able to work on multiple WIPs at once, but you should focus on one WIP at a time if you commonly lose interest before they're finished.
Fix - When you get a new idea, write it down in a notebook and/or in a document on your device. Once the idea is "down on paper," just forget about it. Imagine that it vanishes once it's recorded and you close the notebook/document. It takes practice, but you'll get better at ignoring the pull of a new idea.
Here are some posts from my Motivation post master list that might also help:
Guide: How to Rekindle Your Motivation to Write
Feeling Unmotivated with WIP
Getting Unstuck: Motivation Beyond Mood Boards & Playlists
Getting Excited About Your Story Again
Have fun with your story!
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