How do you get past the boredom?

[LAJistics]

I've noticed this a couple times now. When I'm a decent chunk into the story, it's progressing smoothly and I have the outline of the plot pretty firm in my mind, I start to lose interest.

In the beginning I can type out chapter after chapter like it's nothing, but now it's just feels like I'm grinding out enough words to post. Like when you open a bottle of coke and the fizzle just ends, that's how I'm feeling.

What I want to know is how you all get past this? Do you just soldier on? Start a new story? Or just put it down and step away for a bit?

 

[RepresentingCaution]

You procreate, and then you won't have any time left to write.

 

[Corty]

I've noticed this a couple times now. When I'm a decent chunk into the story, it's progressing smoothly and I have the outline of the plot pretty firm in my mind, I start to lose interest.

In the beginning I can type out chapter after chapter like it's nothing, but now it's just feels like I'm grinding out enough words to post. Like when you open a bottle of coke and the fizzle just ends, that's how I'm feeling.

What I want to know is how you all get past this? Do you just soldier on? Start a new story? Or just put it down and step away for a bit?

My solution when I feel like I'm just robotically churning out chapters is to watch a show or play a game, in a similar setting. Get some fresh inspiration or renewed ideas. Get back into the mood, so to say. For me it is a good way to not just relax but also refresh my drive to continue writing.

 

[DiscoDream]

I've noticed this a couple times now. When I'm a decent chunk into the story, it's progressing smoothly and I have the outline of the plot pretty firm in my mind, I start to lose interest.

In the beginning I can type out chapter after chapter like it's nothing, but now it's just feels like I'm grinding out enough words to post. Like when you open a bottle of coke and the fizzle just ends, that's how I'm feeling.

What I want to know is how you all get past this? Do you just soldier on? Start a new story? Or just put it down and step away for a bit?

Depends on why you write stories. Is it a job, or a hobby? I treat my stories like a piece of art in a collection. If I fall into a fugue, I take a week break and try to shake things up, (Swimming, local events, new games). If I can't find motivation to come back after the break, I drop it and make a new one, while remembering the themes and lessons I learned from the last one. A big problem with writing WN's is the feeling that I have to post, so I don't publish anything til it's finished either. It allows me a great deal of flexibility

 

[LilRora]

I assume the reason for your lack of motivation to write is lack of any excitement for the story. When you're starting something new, you have a mass of ideas in your head you constantly juggle, making writing exciting, but having the plot outlined makes writing different.

It's like comparing an expedition into the unknown to a planned trip to a forest. There are the new things, but they are familiar, like different iterations of the same thing. Instead of exploring something new, you see what you knew is there, just that you haven't seen that exact thing before.

There are two ways I know to get past this. First is to do something new, explore a place (genre, theme, characters) you haven't thought about before. The second is to plan only very vaguely and add exciting details as you write, that would force you to shift the plot slightly, adjust things, in short keep your imagination running.

 

[Erios909]

I will tell you my experience, because this exact thing happened to me, and I didn't write anything new for almost 18 months after burning out.
Essentially, I plotted myself into a corner.

When I first started writing the story, it was just for fun and to see where things went. It was a lot of fun and chapters flowed out rapidly. But cracks started to appear, especially when some readers pointed out a few inconsistencies or poor judgement by the MC.

I realized we were running around aimlessly after the first tight part of the story, so I got to brainstorming what the plot would be.

I wrote up a huge storyboard, detailing all the way down to each event needed in each chapter to reach the ending.

Things continued like that for some time, but every day it got harder, and I had less will to write. Getting a chapter done on time was a struggle as I tried to jam all the jigsaw pieces to fit the mold I had made. Characters rebelled or acted strangely. Eventually, things in real life shoved me and I fell over and gave up.

I'm back to writing again. How did I fix this? Simple, I removed the detailed plot board. I left a few large milestone events and scenes that I was extremely excited to see, and now I'm back to just having fun writing as I go working toward those goal posts, but always focusing more in the moment and what makes sense for the characters to do.

Some people really do plotting well, and I salute them, but I'm definitely a 'pantster' where if I am put on a narrow lane, writing becomes no longer fun or exciting.

 

[FiendsForHire]

Honestly, writing when you're bored is the worst thing you can do. If you're bored when writing it, people will be bored when they're reading it. Definitely need to step away for a bit and re-evaluate. You could step away, do some other hobbies for a while, or try writing something else. I wouldn't recommend soldiering on unless you know there's still passion there.

 

[Tsuru]

"Repetition is the killer of all emotions"

Even what you like can turn into a shore. Even sometimes in novel, i seen some urban (chinese) characters mention "it's fine to keep it as a hobby and not a job, because if it become a job, it would lose it's charm"
Same with love. Lot of cheating is because the married people are tired of their lovers. Also lot of divorce is because, beside finding out the other is not fitting, is because they lose interest. ALSO the idiom [get some distance so the relation stay fresh] works as a contrary solution.
And horrible with inconvenience. Sometimes slightly bothersome can become rage-worthy, depending on how often it will happen.
Even in torture, this logic was used in WW(2?) or before. Simply letting a prisoner have a drop of water fall on his head every X seconds.
FOOD itself is probably the easier thing to understand this. Not often you will find normal families eating the same dishes for 5+ days. YEARS years ago as teen, i saw once on youtube(or tv), a dude doing experiment eating only hamburgers for a month. Result, body itself couldn't accept and he vomited at end of the month when trying to eat more of them.
Music. Happens to probably MILLIONS or billions of people. Them being tired after listening too much to one song. But not lot of people thought of thinking the reason, which simply "repetition" / I am a loop-addict of some good quality songs, and it's interesting that some particular songs are more "durable", because the song itself have multiple different things itself. A song with different parts, makes the brain not tired easily of it, because it's simply like listening to different songs.
EVEN the very old manga Yakitake Japan (bread manga), drew a bread that is impossible to tire of. It is the arc where the samurai guy fight vs the pastry girl (marry to him later), and the bread had a sugar flower on top. Ignoring the flower, the bread basically had multiple "stratums" of different kind of tastes. Lastly. It's also why the chinese fried rice (of putting any kind of ingredients together) is a masterpiece and not tiring to eat endlessly.

tl;dr : Simply take a break. And do other activities for fun. Even a videogame can be tiring if played non-stop.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

Force myself to do what I need to or do something fun for a few minutes depending on what I am bored during. If I have a deadline, whelp all boredom is doing is helping me procrastinate so I ignore it. If I'm not doing something important than I do whatever feels fun for the time being.

 

[TheTrinary]

If I'm bored with the chapter, my rule is that it's not a good chapter and I should punch it up.

 

[Merrikk]

Doing something else, no other way around it, cause doing the exact same thing is a one way ticket to hating that very thing.

 

[Echimera]

You procreate, and then you won't have any time left to write.

So, procreation is an evolved form of procrastination?

 

[KrisVFX]

I've noticed this a couple times now. When I'm a decent chunk into the story, it's progressing smoothly and I have the outline of the plot pretty firm in my mind, I start to lose interest.

In the beginning I can type out chapter after chapter like it's nothing, but now it's just feels like I'm grinding out enough words to post. Like when you open a bottle of coke and the fizzle just ends, that's how I'm feeling.

What I want to know is how you all get past this? Do you just soldier on? Start a new story? Or just put it down and step away for a bit?

Lots of coffee......

 

[RepresentingCaution]

So, procreation is an evolved form of procrastination?

Can't have evolution without procreation ?

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

I've noticed this a couple times now. When I'm a decent chunk into the story, it's progressing smoothly and I have the outline of the plot pretty firm in my mind, I start to lose interest.

In the beginning I can type out chapter after chapter like it's nothing, but now it's just feels like I'm grinding out enough words to post. Like when you open a bottle of coke and the fizzle just ends, that's how I'm feeling.

What I want to know is how you all get past this? Do you just soldier on? Start a new story? Or just put it down and step away for a bit?

I was bored, so I got into politics. It might just be good to take a short break from it before returning. You probably overworked your mind

 

[Deleted member 68927]

I've noticed this a couple times now. When I'm a decent chunk into the story, it's progressing smoothly and I have the outline of the plot pretty firm in my mind, I start to lose interest.

In the beginning I can type out chapter after chapter like it's nothing, but now it's just feels like I'm grinding out enough words to post. Like when you open a bottle of coke and the fizzle just ends, that's how I'm feeling.

What I want to know is how you all get past this? Do you just soldier on? Start a new story? Or just put it down and step away for a bit?

What I have been doing for the past 4 books I have written is this:
Multiple povs. Multiple locations. Basically, you treat the story like a collection of connected short stories. This allowed me to write 2 80k word books, and one 55k word book. (All that, since 16th of September.) Plus, I am at the 55k mark on book 3 from my shared universe project. That said, when I finish the book, I will write something outside the Cosmos Shared Universe. To recharge the spark of the series. (I have planned three more books in that shared universe, but I am beginning to tire from using the same characters for three books straight. Once I write another book, I will come back to this series with a clear mind.)

Treat your story like how mother nature treats an onion, and give it layers.

 

[Underload]

Write books with short arcs but over-arching plots. The high of finishing a book is something surreal. Believe me.

 

[Shard]

IMO if you are bored of your story, you are doing something wrong, and should probably stop, find something you enjoy more, and work on that instead. Note that being burned out, or having a hard time writing are different, and while still problems, they are not half as bad as being bored of your own story.

I'd recommend taking some time off from writing your story and think long and hard about why you find it boring. If you can't find a way to make it exciting for yourself again, you should probably drop it for something that is. That said, this is advice aimed at writing for a hobby, not writing for money - you don't want to throw away a source of income, after all, unless you are certain you can replace it.

 

[PeacefulMyst]

carefully....

 

[BearlyAlive]

Are drugs an option? Otherwise addictions and/or coffee.