One of the things I keep repeating over and over is that if what you are doing does not work, you should try doing something different. The problem is that this seems to go against the deepest instincts people have, because the first thing one has to do in this scenario is to admit that what one is doing is not working.
Many people find this hard to admit because they equate “this isn’t working” with one or more of the following unacceptable reasons why the thing isn’t working:
- I made a mistake
- I am a bad writer/not really a writer
- I have wasted a lot of time and effort
Alternatively, some people won’t admit that what they’re doing isn’t working because they foresee one or more unacceptable negative consequences of saying so:
- I’ll have to start over
- I won’t finish in time
- I’ll have to cut stuff I love
- I’ll have to write a lot of new stuff
- I’ll have to figure out a new plot/characters/technique/process
- …and I have no idea how
And there are the occasional stubborn people who don’t want to admit it’s not working because:
- It worked last time/for the last six books
- One of my test readers (out of twenty) likes it this way
- My favorite author/how-to-write book or blog says it should work
In other words, people don’t like admitting they’re wrong, don’t like having to do more work, and don’t like change, even when it will make life easier in the long run. Many people find it harder to admit that a technique or process isn’t working for their current project than to struggle on for months or years trying to make the process work.
This is especially common among writers who skip immediately to the first set of “reasons” why something isn’t working. If you believe that admitting something doesn’t work means that you are a bad writer, of course you aren’t going to want to admit it…but “it isn’t working” doesn’t have anything to do with whether someone is a “good writer” or not. It just means that a thing isn’t working. It isn’t the brilliance of one’s first draft that makes one a great writer; it’s the finished product (which is usually at least two or three versions down the line).
Another thing I have often told people is that I consider “why” to be one of the most useful queries I can put to my characters and plot. However, if one’s go-to reaction to “why isn’t this working?” is always “Because I’m a terrible writer and I’m never going to learn how to do this,” “why” is not the next step here. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200, and do not ever move from “This isn’t working…” to “…because I can’t write and I should just quit trying and…”
Instead, pinpoint what isn’t working, and then consider things you could do instead. If what isn’t working is the protagonist, maybe you could try a different type of viewpoint (switch from tight-third to first, or omniscient, or even second-person), or switch the viewpoint character from the protagonist to the sidekick (the Watson to your Holmes). If what isn’t working is your process, there are lots of alternatives—pantsing, if you’re normally a planner; writing out-of-order, if you’re normally linear; daily writing, if you’re normally a burst writer; and so on. Or mix up more than one category—plan your story but write backward from the end working for six hours one day a week. Or whatever amount of change and additional work you think you can live with.
When it’s the process that needs to change, I can almost never analyze my way to the correct solution. I just have to shake things up and figure it out by trial and error. It’s frustrating, and it always feels as if I’m wasting huge amounts of time, but in the end, it’s always been worth it.
When what’s not working is a technique or a story element (plot, characters, etc.), my approach is a little different. I have to start by accepting that there is going to be a bunch of rewriting involved—more work, whether I like the idea or not. (I usually don’t like it, but that’s writing.) Then I have to focus on the story, not the writer (me). Here, I do need to think about why this technique or story element isn’t working; “…because I’m a bad writer” in any variation is not a story-focused why. “I don’t have the chops to fix this problem…yet” is acceptable only because the solution—up my skills by practicing—is obvious and doable, as long as I’m willing to try.
Every once in a while, I run across somebody who has already made up their mind, irrevocably, about some aspect of their story that isn’t working. They are completely sure that their character/plot twist/structure/style is exactly what they want to do, and will accept no comment that suggests otherwise. All one can do is say, “Sorry, but it doesn’t work for me.”
For writers in this position, there are really only two responses: 1) Accept that the story is not going to work for people such as this reader, and ignore the comment; or 2) Consider carefully what can be done to make things acceptable to this reader while also sticking as closely as possible to the vision of the story. Well, I suppose one could 3) Rewrite everything according to the commentor’s recommendations, gritting one’s teeth the whole time, but I don’t recommend it.
Sometimes, process why’s can be startlingly useful (not usually but): I realized a while ago my why was it’s too hard to get started (on the computer), thus I was proliferating uncompiled, untyped snippets instead of finished scenes.
That was an easier problem to tackle than I thought it was. I made a dedicated writing laptop space, installed scrivener, and now have a habit of in the morning, wake it up and make it stare at me. Suddenly, words are getting onto the computer.
Doesn’t entirely solve the compilation problem yet, but that also doesn’t feel urgent yet since I write out of order and have enough material to draft out initially to make that nonurgent.
The toughest reason It Isn’t Working is when you’ve lost faith in yourself.
I managed to get through 40,000 words of my current project in four months while massively stressed doing exams and writing my dissertation. Then I paused it for a month so I could actually finish the dissertation, and now I can’t seem to get started again. Even though I’ve had a few weeks to recover post-dissertation, and now I have lots of time. Somehow I keep getting that don’t-wanna feeling and I can’t work out what the problem is. 🙁
I’m beginning to be worried that the solution is to find some other huge and stressful project that I can procrastinate on by writing fiction instead and, uh, that has other downsides.
Sometimes when I get that kind of ‘I don’t wanna’ feeling, especially when it’s after a long bout of stress, it’s because I need to get input rather than make output. That is, I need to read a book, or watch a TV show, or anything else that involves ingesting material rather than exc– uh, actually I’m not going to go further with that metaphor. But you know what I mean. It helps recalibrate my internal narrator in some way.
Other times it’s because I need some kind of external accountability; in those cases I usually do sprinting with a friend.
Yeah, I’m hoping that a break and reading lots of stuff will help. It might just be that recovering from stress takes more time than feels reasonable.
Hey, I use writing to procrastinate homework, too. I’m not saying it’s a healthy habit, but it is one I have. If you need a project to procrastinate, may I recommend learning to play some musical instruments? It’s not critical, and you’re not going to lose a scholarship or have to re-take classes if you don’t do it, but it gives you a skill to learn (which can give you writing material) or to procrastinate (which gives you a reason to write). You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about going to my local church-house to practice the organ, then decided to write instead because going to church in the middle of the week didn’t sound fun. Of course, there *is* the danger that you’ll find you love music a little *too* much… 😉
Any chance you’re associating the writing with the stress you were under while doing it? If so, that sounds like something time can help cure – along with getting back at it on a good day, even if you only write a sentence, so you start associating the writing with good times.
Maybe?
With me, it’s less “I’ll have cut stuff that I love” than “I’ll have to cut stuff that I sweated blood to produce.”
Knowing that this is the cause of my don’t-wanna is not nearly as much help as I’d like.
When I have something that isn’t working, I typically drop the project in the Story Fragments file for a little while to cool off, then go back to it later and see if the basic idea needs to be recycled and added to something else in the ‘Fragments bin. And granted, it doesn’t always work. I’m still looking for the other halves of a dozen or more different stories. But if nothing else, it’s a source of inspiration later on.
OTOH, there’s “this story does not work, I’ll try the new story idea.” That’s a formula for never finishing.
I have a story that’s somewhat in the situation described in the last paragraph. It doesn’t have the problem I thought it did; turns out it has some other problem entirely, which makes it not work for a certain kind of very visual reader. But I really like the thing that’s making it not work for those readers! And it works well for readers who aren’t strongly visual. I don’t think it’s possible to do #2, but I hate to resign myself to #1 (especially since #1 seems to include a lot of slush readers).
Writing is hard, darn it!