Writing is hard. Words don’t flow out easily and land on the page as genius. They need to be selected, ordered, rearranged, swapped, lined up and perfected. Most times they are not cooperative companions though. They are like the unruly child who doesn’t recognize the word “no” even when yelled and accompanied with hands held face out.
There is a reason so many talk about writing instead of doing it. The trick to making it as a writer is not quitting when it gets tough.
Sure there are times when stories stop working. They stall or are blocked or fizzle and die on the page. They don’t work. It happens to every writer on nearly every project. It’s that moment that tempts even the most stalwart to quit. But when should you and should you not listen to that siren call?
The simple answer is never. But the reality is not so easy. Sometimes walking away is the right response. But how do you know?
The best way to figure it out is by asking yourself some hard questions:
Do you love the character(s) so much you’d miss them and mourn the death of their story? If so, keep writing. You may have to tear the story apart at the plot level to find a better path, but if you love the characters, don’t turn your back on them. Give them a story worthy of them. This means pushing through the low point to make the story work.
Do you love the idea? If the idea entrances you, but not the existing story, then begin again. Keep what works (or you think works) and drop the rest. Be brutal. Retain only those parts that keep the essence of the idea alive. Jettison the rest. Then get back to crafting the idea into a story.
Do you love the story? If the story is what still pulls you, then take a closer look at your characters and execution. Look at the emotion of the story, the motivation, the reaction. If the story is solid, but stalled, then the problem likely is with your characters. Ask yourself in each beat of the story whether the characters are acting like themselves or whether you have made them act in a way that fits the story but not their personality. Become a therapist and test your character’s motivations, actions and speech. If you can’t find the issue there, look next to the writing. You may have let the story down with your mechanics.
Are you connected to the story emotionally? If so, then it may be worth digging into the story to figure out where it went wrong and how to fix it. An emotional connection, beyond wanting to finish, is important when you need motivation to begin again, because that is what is often required to save a manuscript—the energy to analyze the story as it stands and the willingness to start again.
Do you care enough to keep going? Will you regret abandoning the project? These are the two critical questions. Are you willing to do the work to save the project?
Where are you in the project? There are times, especially in the beginning, when it’s clear the ideas we dreamed up won’t work on paper. Either they are not fully formed, executed or imagined. They are flawed. Ask yourself whether they need more work, more research or if they are never going to come together. Sometimes we begin with a bad premise and stopping is the best thing to do. Those are the times when you should abandon your work in the back drawer to languish from lack of attention. Let your work serve as a learning experience and move on. There is nothing wrong with that.
Figuring out when a piece isn’t going to work is easier with shorter pieces, but it can be done with longer works too. I’ve had to abandon article ideas when my research didn’t support my idea. I’ve shelved two books of a trilogy because the story wasn’t working. I still love the character and have not ruled out another attempt to tell his story, but it will need to take a different path. The one he was on wasn’t going anywhere new or interesting. The only thing I loved was the character himself. For me, it made sense to move on to a story that was stronger and spoke to me emotionally.
But before you quit, take a beat. Put the story away for a day, a week, a month. Then read it carefully as a reader to see how you feel. Then read it as an editor to analyze what works and what doesn’t. What pulls you and what leaves you flat. What pops off the page and what languishes. If there is enough there, save it. If your heart is not in it, put it aside and move on until you do care again.
Do not stop though. Keep writing. And know that every project hits a lull when the writing or editing gets hard. That is normal. That alone is not a reason to call it quits. If writers did, there would be no books finished.
The problem with quitting is that it is easy. Writing is hard. Editing is hard. Keeping a story alive until the end is hard. Don’t give in because it’s hard. Only move on when you cannot fix the story as it exists and you have chosen to move on (not given up). Give in only when there is no other option to save it. And whatever you do, do not throw your writing away or delete it. You may change your mind or come up with a brilliant solution to the problem and want to redeem it. Always keep your writing no matter what you do in the short-term.