I love to write stories. In fact, I have 3 published novels part of the same series available to buy online, as of 2021.
However, until January of 2018, I could not finish one single draft. I would constantly brainstorm, outline, write, and give up. By the tenth or eleventh chapters, I would become bored of my ideas and quit. I would even read articles on when you should stop writing a particular story.
An then, I discovered the reasons behind my constant attempts and surrenders. I had set my expectations too high. And while other writers can type 100K-word first drafts and cut after that, it’s the opposite for me. I needed to lower my expectations and word counts. So for five weeks, I hand-wrote my first draft and made it to just under 15K words. I decided to break and ignore as many writing rules as possible just so I could finish. And then I would expand my word count after that draft and worry about quality writing.
I compared this to playing a video game or raising a child. When you first play a certain video game, you need to start easy, at level one. Then, as you improve, you move on to the harder levels. When you first have a baby, you have very low expectations for them. And then you raise the expectations as the child grows and their brain develops. For instance, the expectations of a newborn would obviously be very different than that of a toddler and so forth.
So, for all you aspiring and current writers out there, try different techniques, and see what works for you.
Comments