The Sylvan Spy Answers Your Writing Questions
How can I write great stories when I don't feel inspired?
Hey,
Last time the Sylvan Spy hit your inbox, I warned you some writing advice would soon be headed your way. Well, now’s the time to consider it while sipping a lemonade or mocha—or to duck, if you’re the kind of person who hates writing advice, or advice in general.
This writing post, and the next several, will be guided by questions mailed in by readers like you. Got burning questions? Send ‘em my way.
If you like books and writing, or aspire to write more or better, or even for profit, consider me in your corner. I’ll do my best to help you out because when I was just starting, I would’ve loved to have help from a more experienced writer. If you have questions or would like advice, all you have to do is ask, and personally, I think you’d be pretty silly not to. There’s a good chance I’ll tackle your topic.
If you missed my earlier writing posts, they are here and here. But enough pre-advice.
To the tips!
How Do I Keep the Writing Interesting?
Question #1 is from Kaiya, who says: I would really like to know how to keep the writing interesting, both to the reader, and me while I’m writing it. I feel like I will start something, but then I get bored and don’t finish it. Do you have any suggestions?
I like the honesty here, Kaiya. Everyone who has continued to write for more than a few days starts to feel what you’re feeling. Inspiration and excitement can only carry you so far. It rarely lasts an entire manuscript.
If you want to know a dirty little secret—or maybe a bloody little secret would be more like it, since this is the Sylvan Spy—loads of writers spend hours on social media posting gifs, memes, and photos of their work spaces with tea and candles instead of writing. They do it for the simple reason that it’s more exciting to post about #thewritinglife, so called, than it is to write.
So how do serious writers keep it interesting?
The most blunt and honest answer I can give you is: they don’t. Good writers set word quotas for themselves. Then they follow through. 500 words in a day, for example. Or 250, or even 100 if you want to start small. It’s not the size of the goal that matters, but that you stick to it.
Some days, you will feel like your writing is total hash. Ugly, clumsy actions and dumb dialog about nothing much. Maybe it’s trash and maybe it isn’t, but you will have met your quota. And meeting your writing goals, day after day, does begin to feel good and interesting as the tally climbs higher and higher.
Some of your boredom may get scrubbed off on the edges of all the action scenes and conversations and character reveals you create. Better yet, you’ll spend less time thinking about writing and more time just sitting down and getting to it. At least that’s how it often goes for me. I can write myself into caring about writing.
When the first draft is done, you get to celebrate a milestone—and you should. Writing something from first line to ending, even a short story, is a victory. It’s like having the main structures and systems of a house complete, waiting for paint and countertops. Or, since this is the Sylvan Spy, like a skeleton with strands of…well, let’s leave it at that.
Editing your first draft comes next, but that’s a lot more fun than creating it out of thin air. Lots of writers enjoy polishing a story, including me. It just takes persistence to get to the editing phase.
As far as the question of whether readers will think your story is interesting if you don’t, this brings us to what we’d have to call a paradox, something that seems contradictory or illogical but isn’t. This is one of the big paradoxes of writing. You or I can write something, and it feels like pulling teeth. Mentally exhausting. We’d rather do almost anything else, like go run a chainsaw in ninety degree heat and one hundred percent humidity—or maybe that’s just me.
But then, after the story is finished and edited, people find it pretty fantastic.
Well, let me tell you, it didn’t feel pretty fantastic when I was writing it.
But somehow it turned out ok.
Isn’t that weird?
I’d planned to answer two or three questions in this post, but it turns out one inspired me to talk enough. Coming up next, we’ll hit a popular question: How Do I Get An Agent? This is one I’ve avoided answering for a while because the truth is…complicated. And controversial. But will that stop the Sylvan Spy from dealing with it? Of course not. So keep an eye out.
Thanks for taking the time to write this out. Maybe I'll get that children's story called "Five Pickle Buckets" I've had in my head for about 40 years written now.
Writing goals - Time vs Word Count: Isaac and I got into a discussion about word count goals vs. time writing goals. We decided word count was probably better, because you could set your time goal for 1 hour and just sit and stare at the screen accomplishing nothing. Is that why you, and most other authors, choose word count goals not time goals?
Isaac Question: What do you do when you need to write a critical pivot point scene that will impact every aspect of the rest of the book, and you can't quite get all pieces from the "whole story" to line up?
Isaac's Thought: I don't write for other people to read although that is nice. I write the story I want to read - the book I wish had been written for me to read.