I've been running into one particular problem with my stories lately: as I've gotten older, I can write longer works, and even have shown that I could probably write a full-length novel (though I'd be at it for quite some time) but what gets me is sustaining interest in a piece long enough to return to it again and again. No one story grabs at me and demands to be told in full.
How do you guys keep interest in your longer works? Is it just that the story is that good, or is it that you've got the ability to pick at it again and again until it's correct? It's beyond my comprehension...
Posted by Miriel (Member # 2719) on :
I think the trick is not to have just one story in your novel. You've probably heard the advice before to take two different ideas and put them together and then write a story. Sometimes one idea just isn't enough for a story -- and definetly isn't enough for a novel.
Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :
That sounds cool to me. I had multiple threads (maybe too many) in my novel. Those threads or scenes that I found boring, I removed.
Posted by Shendülféa (Member # 2408) on :
I just like writing and that's all there is to it. Did you ever read a book and come to then end of it only to wish that it could continue for just a bit longer? That's how I keep going on with my longer works until they're the length that I need them to be. I just keep thinking, "It can't end here. I have to see what happens next!" And so I keep writing until I have reached a sastisfactory (though often planned beforehand) conclusion. If that makes any sense.
Posted by SimonMRhees (Member # 2777) on :
I have the same problem. I'll get a ways into a story, and then just lose interest. A few things I've found that help are 1) to have more than one story going. When I get bogged down in one, I just switch to another. After a while I can go back to the first one and continue. 2) Like Miriel said, a novel doesn't have just one story in it. There's several threads going throughout the piece, and when one is tough to work on, switch to another.
Maybe your story doesn't have enough happening in it to keep your interest?
Posted by JRune (Member # 2835) on :
Well, my longest work had two stories in one. The first was the story of a young man trying desperately to prove the theories of his father and grandfather involving off-planet evolution of humans.
The other involved the man trying to stop him and the shadowy secret society to which he belonged.
The two stories intertwine in a few places, and directly involve one-another, but there was just never enough to keep my interest in padding it out. Maybe it's just a short story.
I don't know that I can honestly WRITE enough to fill out the standard 120,000 word novel. That's a lot of stuff happening. I mean, that'd cover about 10 of my current maximum length stories. Maybe I should just pick the five best, pad them out and mix them together or something.
Although I don't know how that would work, to be honest.
Posted by Jon Roberts (Member # 2804) on :
Maybe I just need to learn to be more succinct. Whenever I think about writing a story it seems as if there is no possible way that I could fit the whole thing into a "short" story. All my ideas feel too epic to be squashed into a short story. Maybe I just need to learn more about writing them.
Jon
Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :
I say just write your stories, don't worry about length.
If you find yourself getting bored with your story then your reader probably will be too. So ask yourself why you are bored. The answer to that tells you whether or not you should continue the story. If you decide to stop then file it away, you might just not be ready to tell that story yet.
Posted by Robyn_Hood (Member # 2083) on :
So far I've only written one novel, and it's never going to see the light of day. Everything else I've written sticks pretty well under 4000. Why? I'm not sure, but I think part of the reason is that I'm impatient and just can't seem to wait to get to the end.
I'm the same way with my reading. While I enjoy reading novels, I've been known to go without sleep for the night (or with little sleep for several nights) just to get to the end. For this reason I like to read short story anthologies, because I can more easily put the book down once I reach a conclusion.
For my writing, in order to write something longer, I need to have a clear idea of what is going to happen and how it is going to end, otherwise I want to finish it and bring it to a conclusion -- NOW!
I'm trying to develop something for NaNoWriMo, but I'm a little wary of starting something that I won't be able to stretch into 50,000 words.
Posted by JRune (Member # 2835) on :
Well, I find that having a little brother who's keenly into sci-fi and fantasy as much as I am makes it easier to bounce my ideas and get good feedback, as well as help soliciting an ending. We sat around last night tossing my novel's theme around and what we came up with was a much better if not entirely different novel. Gone is the novel of a boy seeking to prove his grandfather's theories while thwarting the attempts of a shadowy agency bent on his silence.
Instead we have the story of an isolated colony about to be plunged into major civil war, and a boy who wants the fighting to stop already and is willing to use an old Empirical weapon left in space to ensure his victory.
There's far more to both stories, but they have the same initial setup and premise, or at least similar setups and premises.
But as far as slogging through and writing, I don't know. I've got a comic script that's 2 pages from completion that's just been sitting there for a few days waiting for completion. I knw that what's been getting me through writing my comic scripts has been me just opening up the program, staring at the words and writing towards the conclusion I've drawn up.
I know I tend to think of my books in terms of movies. I see what happens, and I'm cataloging the events in word format. But watching the same movie over and over gets boring after some time... so I take a break. But we'll see where things progress with this next story. I've still got the problem of how to get myself to sit and just write.
Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :
I think if a story runs out of gas, you can go back into where it was still interesting and shift point of view or emphasize something different.
Posted by maria102182 (Member # 2829) on :
Im new at this, but I think that first you have to care about the characters and stories, and you have to do something that feels right. Also sometimes even if something doesn't feel right, write it anyway. Chances are you can sift through the deadwood and find something you can use. I know that's frustrating, but you have to.