Why You’re Not Finishing Your Novel (and how to break the cycle)
Greetings and salutations Scribblers, most writers have a plethora of half-finished stories saved in haphazard files or interspersed through our notebook collections. If you haven't finished them the problem might not be what you think it is.
You might think it’s because you lack motivation, but I disagree. You have the story inside of you–whether it’s fully fleshed out or it’s just bopping around as a collection of scenes, characters, and world building elements. Either way, the motivation is there. Your brain wants to create this story. But you need more than that to get it down on paper.
There are some common reasons why getting your story actually written might be difficult. Let’s take a look at some.
One: You have vague goals and no deadlines
This is for all my procrastinators out there. Without a deadline would you ever finish something? No shade–some people work really well like this. But if you’re writing and don’t have a deadline, you might not feel the need to actually get that story written. Similarly you might have vague goals. Maybe your goal is to query. That’s great, but when? And how will you get your manuscript ready for that? By just clarifying your goal a bit and saying I want to query in January of the next year, now you have a specific goal and a deadline. If you wanted to get even clearer, you’d want to add in a date for when your manuscript will be done, when you’ll ask for beta feedback, and when you’ll revise since you’ll want to do all of that before you actually query. And don’t worry, you can always reschedule or shift your deadlines, but in your brain, you need to let them have some weight so you stick to them as close as possible.
Two: Getting caught up in being PERFECT
This is something I am guilty of as I draft. Especially when I’m coming off a finished manuscript that has gone through three or four rounds of revision. Having to go back into that messy draft mode messes me up for the first few months because I just got done working with a manuscript that didn’t have plot holes, that had every town named, and my character’s emotional arcs were on point. I’ve gotten better about putting in brackets or leaving myself notes in a manuscript when I start to get tangled in the details or in wanting to spend an hour perfecting two lines of banter between characters that aren’t even fully formed yet. It’s important to get out of our own heads and to remember that every story on the bookshelf started out just as messy and misshapen as ours. Never compare your first draft to a published novel–that published novel has had lots of work done to it, but it was once just a clumsy mess of words that had the author wondering if they truly understood the alphabet or not.
Three: Sometimes the idea isn’t right or ready
Some of those half-scribbled stories? They’ll never have legs. They just don’t have anything that excites you, so you won’t ever finish them. And sometimes, the story needs longer to cook. I wrote a story nearly eight years ago. I struggled through it and finished it, but it was never right. I picked it back up a year ago and my re-draft is going incredibly smoothly because all the issues I was having with it were because I didn’t have the craft knowledge I have now. It wasn’t ready, it needed to keep simmering. I also have a list of story ideas I keep. Sometimes when I look back over it, I find one that I have no memory of adding and makes zero sense to me. Even if I’ve written a bit of the story, it doesn’t spark my curiosity to see what happens, so I let it go to the idea graveyard and never look back.
So how do we deal with not finishing our writing? First off, you get to decide what “done” looks like. No one else (unless you’re actually on a deadline with a publisher!) So pick a project, decide what “done” looks like and give yourself thirty days to reach your goal. It could be finishing a certain number of chapters, or finalizing an outline. Maybe it’s making a list of agents you plan on querying. Whatever it looks like, be specific about what and when, then commit!
Bonus, tell someone what your goal is who can help you be accountable and encourage you. Check in with them regularly to report your progress. Their job isn’t to judge your progress, it’s only to help you stay accountable and stay on track.
Until next time, happy writing Scribblers.
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