Thursday, April 14, 2011

How do you stay interested in a story?

Wow, is it that late already? Today was very exciting for me because I got back edits for the full manuscript of Magic High! This brings my energy up for this project, even though I probably wont be able to work on the changes for a couple of days.

And that brings me to today's topic. I've been working on this book for a long time. Some writers take most of their lives to finish a book, and others take only a few weeks. I guess that puts me somewhere in the middle. The trick is to finish a book with the same amount of excitement that you have starting out. If you get bored, you'll probably feel that the readers will get bored too, so what's the point of continuing on? This may be true, but often it wouldn't take much to rework the story to make it exciting again. Knowing when to give up on an idea and when to slog on is a skill that all writers have to develop.

One trick that I use to keep myself interested in a story is to talk about it with someone. Even if they don't care as much as I'd like them to, just saying things out loud often gets me thinking about it in a new way. Rereading my favorite bit of the story can also help reinvigorate my interest. Sometimes this doesn't work and I end up hating my favorite scene, but hopefully I'll read it and think, wow! Did I really write that?

Often times it's just a matter of sitting down and working on the story again after a bit of an absence for me to rekindle that first love. Sometimes I find myself putting off working on a story for whatever reason. However, once I force myself to sit down and do the work, I usually have a lot of fun.

Tell me, what do you do to keep yourself interested in a project?

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