Save My Writing: Keep It Interesting & Stay Engaged

Two similar questions we fielded yesterday on Twitter, and here are the answers from our resident writing coach Cynthia Morris. They focus on staying interested in the story your writing, and moving beyond those first few chapters.

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Question

Answer

How to stay engaged?

This is a common writing challenge. People get bored with their projects and flit from one to the next, never finishing what they started.

I consider this a craft issue more than a writing habit issue. When we become bored with our writing or a project, I call it a threshold moment.

This is where you need to learn something new or advance to the next level in your craft to be able to cross the threshold. Here, you need to learn how to keep generating conflict for your character to show us who he is and what’s important to him.

Bring on the Drama

Boredom in writing often happens because there’s not enough conflict in the story. We need drama and tension all throughout to keep both us and our readers engaged.

I remember when I finally ‘got’ this for my own novel. As a coach and generally nice person, I am conflict-averse. My whole life and work is geared toward helping my clients get out of dilemmas, not get into them.

But for fiction, we need dilemmas. Good ones. Cringers, if you can pull them off.

Once I started throwing trouble at my character, I realized how fun it was to create drama on the page and watch her sort it out.

Here are a few tips for staying engaged with your story:

• Surprise yourself. Have your character do something totally out of character.
• Put your character in a really difficult situation. Nay, several. Keep adding more and watch him make his way out of it.
• Check your writing for too much internal monologue or exposition. A sure passion-killer. On one draft of my novel, I cut 15,000 words of inner monologue. Fifteen thousand. Yup.

Too Much Outlining Can Kill Your Interest

Have you outlined your stories? That can often be a creativity killer. We think we’re being all organized and efficient with a detailed outline.

But when we go to write the story, we feel like we already know what happens. We’ve gotten our creative jollies already and want to do something else that’s interesting.

As they say, ‘No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.’ Let yourself be surprised.

Are You Hiding The Good Stuff?

Lastly, ask yourself if you’re trying to stay safe. Are the stories you’ve chosen ones that are clever but shallow?

If you’re writing about characters and themes that are deeply meaningful to you, chances are you’ll stay engaged longer.

The best writing is where we’re trying to sort something out for ourselves. Not where we’re pontificating on what we already know.

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Question

Answer

This is a similar problem to the one above, but with a slightly different answer.

For longer works like a novel, it can help to have a bit of an outline, or even a sense of where the novel is going in the bigger picture. Like a rough sketch.

With a basic idea of the big picture, you can then play with how to get your character to the final pages.

What Happens in the First Third?

In chapter three, you’re still developing the main conflict and revealing the character, setting and subplots. You’re introducing new characters. Who else is coming on the scene and how do these new characters engage with your protagonist?

Play with some unexpected scenes. What are some conflicts your character can encounter that will show us her mettle?

Keep the Trouble Coming!

Conflict, conflict, conflict. Whenever you find yourself wondering what’s next, respond with a tense, juicy, dramatic encounter. Have fun writing your character’s way out of the conflict.

More on developing great novel plots can be found in Donald Maass’ excellent book, Writing the Breakout Novel. You may also wish to skip right to his workbook of the same title, which gives great exercises to work through the elements of dynamic fiction.

Also recommended: The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Voglerm which Eric recently reviewed here on Fuel Your Writing.

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We hope these have helped! If anyone else has any questions for Cynthia, please send them to us – either on Twitter or in the comments section below.