A writer’s momentum often slows right at the 1/3 point of their novel. Here’s what to do if that happens to you.
I’m writing this on November 10th, which marks the 1/3 point of NaNoWriMo.
If you’ve been writing 1667 words/day, that means your manuscript is 16,667 words long now. And that marks the 1/3 point of a 50k word novel.
And that is exactly where many writers experience their story slowing down, or even grinding to a halt.
In the first 3rd of a novel, your main character is reacting to external events. This is where the detective is reacting to the murder and collecting info; this is where the lass becomes smitten with the laird, the shepard is chased from his village by pillaging orcs. This is where the main character is on the back foot.
If you find your writing bogging down, it’s time to reignite your creative mind and get those sentences coming again.
Your main character needs to make a decision and do something proactive.
That’s all you need to know. Don’t overthink it.
Your creative mind sometimes resists big decisions. Why? Because big choices cut off options. They force your character past a point of no return.
This is why your confusion and frustration with your novel is so often a direct reflection of your main character’s confusion and frustration with her situation.
When she doesn’t know what to do, or when everything she’s tried has failed, her motivation flags too.
For you as a writer, just as it is for your main character, this is a turning point. Marshal your will, call upon allies, urge your subconcious to look at the problem from a new angle, dig deeper. Your hero’s journey, is your journey.
And this is why I keep repeating the Bradbury mantra. “Write. Don’t think. Relax.”
Write the next sentence, and the next. The resistence you feel is your character’s resistence. Your job is to keep pushing pushing her toward the brink where she must make a choice.
She will, and the writing will race ahead.
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