I’ve just posted Chapter 11 of the Without a Summer draft, for those of you reading along. There’s a fair chance that I’ll finish my NaNoWriMo challenge today and certainly will tomorrow.
I hit the plot wall yesterday, which always happens to me about the two-thirds mark. When I wrote Shades of Milk and Honey, during NaNo, I hit the same wall and knew that the novel had taken a wrong turn, but I plowed ahead and stuck to the outline. Part of what I was trying to learn, during that NaNo, was how to handle plot. I had trouble telling if the resistance I felt during the last bit had been because the story had taken a wrong turn, or just fatigue.
Now I can tell the difference. Or rather, I can tell that there is no difference. When the fatigue sets in, for me, it sets in because I am bored with the story. If I am bored as a writer, the chances of it intriguing me as a reader are pretty darn slim. Now, there is general physical and mental fatigue but I’m not talking about the things that happen when other parts of your life intrude into your writing. I’m talking about the fatigue that sets in when the thought of writing makes you tired.
So– I hit the plot wall yesterday and the story felt like it had bogged down. I went for a walk. I looked at my outline. I went for another walk. Then a couple of long walks. What I thought about was the aspects of the story that I was excited about as well as the ones that were not firing for me. I thought about character motivations. What did each character want in each scene and overall? What was each scene doing for my plot?
When I came back, I cut one scene that I had been planning on writing, and adjusted the motivation in one that I had already written. The story snapped back into shape.
My fatigue vanished. It vanished because I’m excited about where the story is going again. I still will have some adjustments to do on the overall manuscript but that can wait until I’m ready to deploy editor brain. For now, my writer is happy again.
Interesting – I almost always hit the same wall at about 2/3rds in, and I’m not an outline person. Comforting to know outliners struggle too 😉 Glad that you worked out what was snagging you!
I think it’s because that is the point where we switch from asking questions to answering them.
I’ve never thought about it before, but you may be right. On reflection, most of my halts also stem from muddled/unclear character motivations as well. At 2/3rds the motivation often sharpens or alters (so I’m stuck because I haven’t adjusted appropriately) or the character needs motivations fulfilled and I’m no longer sure how to bring it about satisfactorily. I was blocked on a book for three years because I couldn’t figure out how to bring my character peace (she could not have a ‘happy’ ending but she needed one with hope for healing…was tremendously difficult to hit it right).
Now that’s very exciting to hear, as a reader. 🙂