In the midst of writing a full-length narrative, it is more common than not to arrive at a point when you realize the story’s all wrong, nothing works, and you’ve wasted months, if not years. The narrative arc you’ve been riding collapses beneath you. The story’s implausible, Swiss cheese, skeletal. You’ve created paper doll characters. Your cliché-ridden prose sticks to the roof of your mouth. The possible justifications for failure are endless. But in the end, the verdict is the same: You will never write this book, much less future books. Writing is painful, a waste of time, and way too much work!
A tiny voice inside you whispers, whew, that’s a relief, now we can give up.
If you’re a pro, you whisper back–Too bad, so sad, this is where the writing gets good. Because this is where you wake yourself up again, shake out the kinks in your imagination, and go deeper. This is the time to loosen up and write 100 lines about a character, and riff on 100 scene ideas, and make sure you’re keeping a parity notebook for your primary non-viewpoint characters. Check in with the 10-minute-vent exercise to keep your internal saboteurs and tricksters in check. And keep going.
Certainly, there are times to set a book aside, temporarily or for good. Sometimes you really do discover a fatal flaw. Sometimes an unfinished book is a stepping stone to the book that you truly need to write. But before you practice the fine art of giving up, be sure you’re not quitting when the writing’s just getting good.
