Burnout Immune Stories

[LightNovelNovice]

So I've been writing stories for a few years, but usually I don't manage to finish my stories due to burnout or losing interest in the story itself.
Despite this I've had one story that I've been writing for roughly a year, on and off, and it strangely never gets old for me.
I can go back to it and reread it and just pick up where I left off with the same enthusiasm!

Does anyone have stories they're writing that give them the same feeling?

 

[Hans.Trondheim]

There are many reasons as to why some stories you write don't reach the end.

1). You don't actually want what you write. Maybe you just got carried away by the trend, or forced to work on it coz you see its popularity. Or you're just in for the fame and money. When those didn't work, it is only natural that you lose interest in it.

Solution? You may need to reorient your goals why you write.

2). You don't have any direction of what to do with those stories. This is similar to authors here asking what will be the next for a certain part of their novel from random people at the forum. Sure, receiving answers might revive your interest for a time, but it's technically not your work, and you lose interest.

Solution? Plan your stories. Have a vision of its start and ending. There will come a time that you will lose interest, but what separates the consistent author from others is that, they return to work on it, even if it takes a while.

3). In an attempt to keep churning out chapters, you keep writing even though the signs of exhaustion or burnout is there. Then, once burn out comes, you just stop, unable to continue. Few years or months past, you lose your original vision of the work and the interest drops.

Solution? Knowing your writing habits and planning with that put into consideration will help you. I'm a lazy writer, see? But because I know my writing strengths, weaknesses and routines, I developed a workaround for it. As a result, I just finished my 20-book series started in May 2019.

Now, about your novel that you have an on-and-off relationship, it might be that it's one you really love to write, or it can also be the story structure itself. An episodic work tends to be resilient to long pauses/breaks than a long, consistent one.

 

[Zagaroth]

I have been writing my current story for just shy of two years, and I have not burned out on the story itself.

I'm going to be sad when I reach its finale, but I thankfully set out to keep the stakes small. My ideas for this setting have multiplied, and we will at least get to revisit these characters in the future.

 

[Thraben]

There is an omni-exception to everything I am about to say, and it is if writing that story is literally your job

However, all of the following:

1. If you have reached the end of your creative improvement with a project, or believe you have reached that point, there is no reason to stick with it unless the aforementioned omni-exception is true. This is NOT a bad thing, it's healthy for your continued improvement and mental health regarding creative endeavors.

2. Unless you are charging them on a subscription model, YOU OWE YOUR READERS NOTHING, and therefore can and should simply stop writing, or delete a work you don't like, or abandon a project (and a million other 'or' scenarios that are equivalent) in favor of doing something you actually want to do or are more mentally healthy doing.

3. In light of points 1 and 2, I argue that creativity burnout is not real, and the term is in fact a misdiagnosis when the actual problem is someone not understanding either 1 or 2.

 

[MajorKerina]

My Cerberus Saga series is quite a bit like that. I went for almost 2 years straight of just writing. But it was incredibly unhealthy because I had no social life and let many things around me deteriorate along with my mental health. Not advisable.

The key trait it had was a series of stories that take place in different universes of a multiverse but share characters that crossover with interrelated themes. What kept me energized was that each story fed the narrative while being finite. Each one requires sequels and left unknowns for the characters with compelling possibilities for me. Even the ones that are one and done do that.

- New fresh interesting characters each time with new challenges for writing
- different perspectives on similar situations
- New genres and styles to keep it fresh
- being able to start fresh with a story that already has a foundation but has plenty of open room to be explored
- A regiment of writing every single day that I followed for two years.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

So far I have avoided this by having several different stories I am working on (and when I tire of writing stories I shift to writing adventure scenarios for RPGs). If I stop writing it is because either a job became too demanding or I have been too distracted by other issues (like the doll convention my wife is on the board for and which tied me up for the last week - got a single chapter written on the plane out and about 20 sentences - almost always got interrupted after writing two, every time I started, while there)