Throwing in the towel

[kbois]

Here's a question for my fellow writers. 

How do you decide when it's time to throw in the towel on a story you're working on and put it to the side?

Writer's block is a vicious b!+€#. I started a story a little over a year ago. The idea had been brewing for a while. Last year had a boatload of challenges for me, physically, mentally and emotionally. I got as far as chapter 8 and other than the first chapter, the rest didn't seem to flow as easily as my earlier stories. 

I have other story ideas in a folder I keep for that very purpose. None of them have really ignited a spark yet. Then today, I had some inspiration and a new idea took hold. It's just a seedling. I have no clue whether or not it's viable. So do I let it germinate for a while and continue trying to yank the rest of my current story out of my brain or do I throw in the towel, put it to the side and start over from square one with this new idea?

I just wanted to get a few other perspectives. Let me know your thoughts on what has worked for you. 

[northie]

Sometimes I leave something for a while, come back, and it continues as if nothing ever happened. One incomplete story I have now, I spent a lot of time on a couple of years ago and I've pretty much never been back to it. That was probably an issue with plotting and character motivation. To go back to that one will need a lot of work and tearing up of digital pages. First, I've got to decide whether it's worth it. Another, I'm enjoying more but requires a lot of research and I return to it in fits and starts. That one's already had a rewrite. New work usually happens when there's nothing more urgent. I don't lack for ideas so there isn't the imperative to slog on with a unrewarding story in the hopes it'll turn good. Unless you're under contract to produce something, do whatever makes most sense (creative or otherwise). Keep the story though. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe you won't. I imagine most writers have a bottom drawer full of unfinished masterpieces...  🤨😄 If the new idea gets your creative juices flowing, I'd go with that. 

Be interested to see other replies.

[kbois]

16 hours ago, northie said:

Sometimes I leave something for a while, come back, and it continues as if nothing ever happened. One incomplete story I have now, I spent a lot of time on a couple of years ago and I've pretty much never been back to it. That was probably an issue with plotting and character motivation. To go back to that one will need a lot of work and tearing up of digital pages. First, I've got to decide whether it's worth it. Another, I'm enjoying more but requires a lot of research and I return to it in fits and starts. That one's already had a rewrite. New work usually happens when there's nothing more urgent. I don't lack for ideas so there isn't the imperative to slog on with a unrewarding story in the hopes it'll turn good. Unless you're under contract to produce something, do whatever makes most sense (creative or otherwise). Keep the story though. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe you won't. I imagine most writers have a bottom drawer full of unfinished masterpieces...  🤨😄 If the new idea gets your creative juices flowing, I'd go with that. 

Be interested to see other replies.

I still haven't decided. Since I started writing I've only left two stories on the back burner. One is still there, the other morphed it's way into a trilogy. I honestly think that I left poor Spirit Wolves hanging in the wind for so long is because I knew at the time I didn't have the writing skills nor the support team that the story deserved. It took on a life of its own once I got back to it. I guess it turned out ok lol. 

I'll mull things over this weekend and see what happens. I used to let my long walks with my dogs be my time to allow my brain to do its thing and give me some inspiration. The pups are now seniors and walks are shorter so it's not as productive. 

Thanks for your feedback!

[Krista]

I'm not an expert on anything writing.  I have struggled with motivation and have cancelled numerous stories. From what I could tell was, I started most of those stories on a complete whim. That I ran with an idea blind and I ended up slamming my face right into a brick wall. The start of an idea can feel like a breath of fresh air, but if that idea is no deeper than that then motivation can fall to the wayside really fast for me. 

If I start a story with an intention through an idea I really wanted to cover and characters I want to portray, and later I still struggle I feel it a lot harder, because I actively set out to tell this story. So, I do try to bounce ideas around to get me 'through' that section of writing, because it may just be a bit of a chunk of writing that you're just not motivated to cover at the moment. This usually leads me to have documents half-finished until the way I want to write the part finally makes it all the way through. I think I had four incomplete chapters because the fifth try got me through the section of writing I struggled with at one point with my last posted story here. It was rough, it took a lot of time, and I hated the process. 

Also, I have started stories, and then something in RL derail me, and I just have a stress trigger attached to that story and I accept the fact that I can't continue on with it. 

As you've said, it is entirely okay to set something aside. If the idea/story still has legitimate teeth and worth for you to continue it, it can rest until your mind and motivation to work on it comes back. I wrote two "shorter" stories while I was attempting to finish a different story, because I was in a portion of the writing that was too important to the plot, and I kept feeling like I wasn't doing it well. It killed my motivation for that story, so I put it aside, created side projects, and came back to it. I feel doing so helped all stories, although it annoyed my readers... as it took me a really long time to finish the story.

If it ends up that you no longer want to complete the story, that is just how things go at times. I look over my "graveyard" of dead stories sometimes and i feel bad, because I see the documents. I read them and I love one story a lot. I like the writing, it is different than what I typically do, but I also know that despite all that, I don't have it in me to continue it. I don't have the mindset to do it, the time to do the research for it, as it is themed around something I know little about, and I needed that research before I started anyway, and failed myself by not doing that pre-writing.

I guess the biggest thing I can say is: If a story is taking over your mind in a negative way and keeping words 'off' the paper, then it may be better to just let it go. Get back on track with a story that doesn't do that to you. The worst thing you can do is throw in the towel with all writing, because you've allowed the story to murder your motivation for all writing. 

Edited February 20, 2025 by Krista

[LJCC]

On 2/20/2025 at 6:16 AM, kbois said:

Here's a question for my fellow writers. 

How do you decide when it's time to throw in the towel on a story you're working on and put it to the side?

Writer's block is a vicious b!+€#. I started a story a little over a year ago. The idea had been brewing for a while. Last year had a boatload of challenges for me, physically, mentally and emotionally. I got as far as chapter 8 and other than the first chapter, the rest didn't seem to flow as easily as my earlier stories. 

I have other story ideas in a folder I keep for that very purpose. None of them have really ignited a spark yet. Then today, I had some inspiration and a new idea took hold. It's just a seedling. I have no clue whether or not it's viable. So do I let it germinate for a while and continue trying to yank the rest of my current story out of my brain or do I throw in the towel, put it to the side and start over from square one with this new idea?

I just wanted to get a few other perspectives. Let me know your thoughts on what has worked for you. 

It's time to throw in the towel when you have other stories coming forward and you're not thinking about the story you're about to walk out of. That's the time you know you'd have to step away.

There was an alien space opera story I started (think of Star Trek or the Mass Effect series—that scale), and I didn't realize it was too large a world for me to write. So I stopped writing it. It would have taken me more than a decade in order to write a 6 or 8-novel anthology out of that. But yeah, I think of the characters from time to time. However, not enough for me to dust them off and take them out of hiding.

There's also a story I wrote when I was 18. But I was such a shitty writer then that it didn't give them justice. So I scrapped it 80k+ words in. The emotional depth and maturity required to convey the story were out of my reach. Now, I think I could give them the justice they deserve. I just don't have the time yet to do so. Maybe in a few years or more. Who knows?

[Krista]

The one good thing about backing up files and such, you can always go back and look at them again... maybe redefine the story or use the idea/general theme to start new. The original story may be scrapped, but it could still be of value to you later on whilst it is sitting there waiting for you.

Standing In Shadows for example was a scrapped Heterosexual drama story that I started back in 2002ish, when I was a Sophomore in high school. It was a story that I let my friends read. That is when they told me that they wished the characters were gay, because they didn't have a lot of content at the time. Or knew where to find it. We also found Nifty around that time as well, so I hopped away from that story, and started one with a homosexual theme.... but the story sat there, and when I came back to it, I was able to work it into something entirely different.

I do miss the heterosexual themed version with the Female protagonist, but I didn't know where I wanted it to go and I wasn't in the mindset to do it justice at the time.

I am a word hoarder though, unless something bad happens, I tend to keep most of my writing. I have lost a ton of my earlier works though, because I no longer own the devices they were on and I didn't back them up. They were around my most messy writing, so maybe that saved me from the wrinkles I'd develop by grimacing and frowning my way through it.  

[Thirdly]

I don't think I'm the right person to ask this. As others already know, I have projects on a list longer than my arm. I also dabble in drawing because I was a born Jack of all Trades...able to do a lot, but average all across the board. 😂 

What I do to pacify the plot bunnies forever boffing and multiplying in my head is alternate from one project to another (only 3 different projects at a time because my attention can't really be divided, but I can pretend to have some control over what the 3 top slots are). This allows me to rest from the burnout of project 1 and focus on project 2 for a while.  Then when I burn out on project 2, go back to project 1 or hop to project 3 and so on until one of them is completed. 

That's my method of madness.

Edited February 21, 2025 by Thirdly

[W_L]

I'm facing that right now, Stray Adventure would have been my first shifter novel, but it's hard to make it engaging without falling into tropes and contrivances. Having a shifter prince from another world (reverse isekai) stuck as a cat and a deaf protagonist was a unique idea, as both have communication issues, but I am having a lot of trouble trying to construct a story around their misadventures in the modern world. Writing 4 chapters is easy, but outlining the full novel is difficult. There's just something missing in the surreal element and I don't "feel" the chemistry I want from them. 

 

[lawfulneutralmage]

I have been very close to giving up, but just right now, I found an answer to my writer's block! - Kill him off!

Yes, that's what I will do. I need a big explosion...

[Mikiesboy]

2 hours ago, lawfulneutralmage said:

I have been very close to giving up, but just right now, I found an answer to my writer's block! - Kill him off!

Yes, that's what I will do. I need a big explosion...

errrrmmm… just make sure you are prepared to write about all the fallout that occurs from said explosion, and i don't just mean pieces of rock and debris… i'm eagerly awaiting this one.

[lawfulneutralmage]

Fallout...yes! I am going nuclear! That fits! Thx!

[ReaderPaul]

To use a laundry analogy, please wash [or compartmentalize] the story, dry it [back it up], then fold neatly and put it in a proverbial drawer until you are ready to consider it again.

Sometimes I have to do that with IRL (In Real Life) projects for an indefinite period of time.