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Hello friends! As the title suggests, I’ve kinda hit a rough spot with my writing.
Not in the way you’d probably think, it’s not the dreaded writer’s block. Rather the opposite, I’m in that blissful state every writer longs for where word counts are being hit, the words are flowing, the story is taking shape, and writing is fun.
However, in the past few months, I’ve noticed that my writing has kind of stagnated. Or, it feels like it has.
So, my first question is, how do you know when your writing skills are plateauing?
I’ve often seen with published authors when they’ve published a few books, they start to fall into a pattern. Their writing starts going down in quality and starts getting somewhat repetitive. I don’t think this is something they’re usually aware of.
I’ve always been scared about the same thing happening to me without noticing it. Like, on the growth curve, I feel like I’ve gotten past the beginner stage. I even feel like I know what I’m doing most of the time, and I think that’s part of the problem. I don’t know what I don’t know anymore. I feel like I can’t find new stuff to learn, and I don’t mean that in a ‘I know everything’ way, more ‘I don’t know where to find new ways to improve because I’ve learned everything I can find to the best of my ability’.
I think some contributing factors are that I’m currently rewriting, for the second time. So, I’m in the polishing stages, where I’m already very familiar with the story and it’s no longer rough or unformed. I’ve also been working on this story for a long time, but I don’t want to abandon it, even though my growth has been stuck. I want to finish it, I really love it and I’m motivated to finish even though I don’t want to publish it. I also just want it to be done so I can move on with other things, and I don’t want to jump around and not finish it.
So, I’ve been doing the same thing for a while, out of pure necessity of working on a long trilogy that takes a lot of time.
I’m getting critique on it as well, but a lot of it feels like minor polishing things, so not any big writing things that I have to learn about and improve on. The story is just genuinely pretty good and pretty polished. I feel like there’s so many things I don’t know, but I don’t know where to find them.
I’d be really interested in hearing if any of you have experienced anything similar, and if anyone has any ideas for growing through it! Or, if it’s just a part of the editing process where the story is pretty polished and you just have to push through it and enjoy the peace while it lasts? XD
That’s interesting! I don’t think I have anything much meaningful to contribute here because I have not even come close to plateauing (Because I haven’t written much), but I’ve totally noticed that with other authors.
I used to love this book series “The city of ember”, but only the first book of the series really feels, alive. That being said, it really inspired me. I think that was less the author plateauing, and more of maybe… wanting to make more money and feeling obligated to tack on an ending and more plot… instead of leaving on open ending. I was going to suggest trying to write in a new-too-you style, but obviously your not going to do that in the middle of a book. But maybe a good side project 🙂
Something I found funny about that book though is at the end of the whole thing when the two main characters get married, they say something like, “her red hair” and I was like Whaaaaat? it was red? 😂🤣I probably just missed it earlier.
I like to try to emulate styles I’ve read in others books, but maybe that a beginer-trying-to-figure-out-how-to-write-thing.
Take this all with a grain of salt, I’m honestly just replying cuz this topic looks interesting.😂
You should try praying about it! I used to be really good at descriptive stuff but could never come up with a plot, prayed that I wanted to be able to write, and lol, one day the idea for my current WIP just came too me! Good luck of your books! (I’m sure they’ll be great) 😊
"And so I left this world just as I had entered it. Confused."
I’ve never been plateaued before either – I’m honestly still learning everything I can at this point 🙂 – but the first thing that comes to mind is, start something new. It doesn’t need to be wildly different, like switching from fiction to non-fiction. Just a story that has a different voice or style of writing.
My writing has never taken on rock-hard seriousness, but I do have a WIP that I dub with ‘serious’ that has almost a blunt, solemn feel about it, and has harder vocabulary words in general. Then another WIP that is ‘fun.’ That one has a bit more poetic prose, the dialogue is bouncy (and sometimes super funny) and it’s easier to lose track of reality.
I’m learning a lot from both of them, and not necessarily the same things. The first, I have a bird’s-eye view because of the bluntness, so it’s easier to focus on the entire plot, and work out how everything falls into place. I’m not concentrating on the details. And even if I am, they’re easy to track. The second story is harder, actually, because I’m terrible with pacing in it. Plus, waaay too much purple prose XD So with that one, it’s less that I’m sewing the dress, and more of smoothing out the wrinkles.
So in conclusion, writing something with a totally different voice and focus might get you back into the learning phase again. But before that, FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED. AND REVEL (NOISILY, IF NEEDED) IN THE GLORY OF YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENT.
Sorry, got a little carried away XD It’s not like I can say that from experience…
“Everything is a mountain”
If you’re plateauing then just keep rolling with it you’ll most likely iron out repetitions in editing most likely. I think that in most cases authors just find something that works and therefore fall into the trap? of unconsciously (or maybe consciously) creating and following a formula for creating works. An example of this can be seen in Nicholas Sparks (look up the Nicholas Sparks formula for more info). Another thing I have felt authors do is when you first read their series then you are actually scared that the central characters might get seriously hurt or die or win/stop winning. Over the series though you realize none of these aforementioned things will happen to these characters therefore despite the characters finding themselves in equally or more perilous situations you loose or at least significantly lesson your fear for their safety. This can be seen in many long series the most recent of which that I read was The Keeper of the Lost Cities.
@folith-feolin That is definitely a valid point, especially with the example you gave. Many deaths don’t have the force they should have because readers have developed an immunity to the “emotion-pulling” technique. A few new formulas are in order.
Also, this is a random rabbit trail, but what is your opinion of Keeper of the Lost Cities?
“Everything is a mountain”
I don’t really like the Keeper of the lost cities series. I read it 1-2 years ago and thought the first few were great (this could be because I hadn’t really read anything or fun in the last 3 months due to overfilling my schedule with schoolwork and after-school activities) after around book 5 they started fitting into a formula and it also fit into the second thing I mentioned above. It also felt like the plot never really moved forward that far. after this summer in which I absorbed most of the most popular recent high and Dark/Grimdark fantasy novels looking back at keeper of the lost cities makes keeper seem particularly drab. However I will probably still read the newest one or at least read a summary of it mostly because I am a compleshonist.
It’s nice to hear that there’s someone else who doesn’t enjoy that series. I’ve only read the first book (starting the second) and there are all sorts of problems. The main character’s specialness, some info-dumping and a few questionable situations – like going off with this boy she didn’t know, keeping stuff from her parents for no reason, and leaving them to live with people she didn’t know – were my personal cons. Those last cons aren’t unacceptable to me if they had been altered a little, or if Sophie had to face consequences. Which she did for the last one, to a degree. But anyway…
I’ll definitely take your word for it about the formula. That’s something to be aware of.
By the way, you seem like the sort of person who might enjoy Dawn of Wonder, so I recommend.
“Everything is a mountain”
Thanks for the suggestion I will have to check it out!
If you need something else to read I would Highly recommend checking out the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. The first one has some problems mostly do to spending a bit to much time on world-building but it’s still good. The other books afterward fix most of these and are amazing.
(sorry I forgot to tag you in the previous post)
I used to love this book series “The city of ember”, but only the first book of the series really feels, alive. That being said, it really inspired me. I think that was less the author plateauing, and more of maybe… wanting to make more money and feeling obligated to tack on an ending and more plot… instead of leaving on open ending.
Oh yes I’ve seen that too, SO often! Sometimes I’m torn between wanting more of the characters and wanting the story to remain good quality XD
Something I found funny about that book though is at the end of the whole thing when the two main characters get married, they say something like, “her red hair” and I was like Whaaaaat? it was red? 😂🤣I probably just missed it earlier.
Lolll it’s the WORST when that happens!!
I like to try to emulate styles I’ve read in others books, but maybe that a beginer-trying-to-figure-out-how-to-write-thing.
And that’s an awesome technique! I’ve done things like that too, and it’s great practice!
I was going to suggest trying to write in a new-too-you style, but obviously your not going to do that in the middle of a book. But maybe a good side project 🙂
That’s actually a good idea! I’m going to see if I can start working on maybe some smaller projects like flash fiction or short stories, just for a change XD
You should try praying about it! I used to be really good at descriptive stuff but could never come up with a plot, prayed that I wanted to be able to write, and lol, one day the idea for my current WIP just came too me! Good luck of your books! (I’m sure they’ll be great) 😊
That’s always the best advice there is 😀
So in conclusion, writing something with a totally different voice and focus might get you back into the learning phase again.
That’s a pretty brilliant suggestion! It made me realize I might be experiencing this now because I’ve been writing from one POV for months XD I recently had just an inbetween chapter with a different POV and it was so fun and interesting again!
I’m going to try writing some shorter fiction just to get back into a learning space I think!
But before that, FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED. AND REVEL (NOISILY, IF NEEDED) IN THE GLORY OF YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENT.
LOLLL YESSS the best part of writing must be celebrated!!!
Thanks for replying!
If you’re plateauing then just keep rolling with it you’ll most likely iron out repetitions in editing most likely. I think that in most cases authors just find something that works and therefore fall into the trap? of unconsciously (or maybe consciously) creating and following a formula for creating works.
That’s a good point, I’ve noticed the same thing in my own writing!
Another thing I have felt authors do is when you first read their series then you are actually scared that the central characters might get seriously hurt or die or win/stop winning
Oh yeah, a lack of stakes is absolutely a thing! I’ve noticed that too with a lot of long-running series.
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