Maintaining steam/interest

[Shocker]

I have written over the years a couple of stories, so I have a fairly solid idea on my output. If a story is getting me excited enough, I put down about 3000 words per writing session. It’s the reason why the parts of my handful of muli-part stories are about that size.

Of late I do notice it gets considerably harder, to go back to a story I have begun and continue it. As there are multiple authors among us, who are frequently writing almost novel length stories, how do you keep up the motivation to do that?

For me there is usually a clearly defined scene that I want to arrive at, once I have that I add some closing to it and call it a day.

[Vela Nanashi]

For me starting a story is the hard part, my stories nearly never fail during writing, only if I stop for too long can stories fail to be possible to continue.

For me it hurts to stop writing a story, and the characters almost never want me to do that, they want me to inhabit them and continue to write their stories, though of course they prefer nice stories to bad ones, but some would rather be in one of my dark stories than not be in any.

Of course I never plan a story, if I do it dies for me and I can't continue writing, or even start writing.

Though I think I am not like most writers when it comes to things like this, so I too am curious about those of you who write long stories. What keeps that going for you?

[Claire]

I think 3000 words is actually good size for one part in a multi part story. If you come out of the gates guns blazing with 15,000+ words I think you're intimidating readers a bit, like you're asking a big commitment of them before they even know whether they like your story.

I've written two long and a few medium length stories. I think the way I keep myself motivated for the longer stories is not that different from what you do for your short stories. You said that you have a scene in your head that you want to reach. For my longer stories, it's similar for me. It's not necessarily a scene but maybe a character arc or the resolution of a plot thread that I have in mind. I knew for example from the beginning of chapter 6 how chapter 9 of Record Chaser would end and how the climax of the story would resolve the central conflict at the end of that chapter. So similar to how you write toward a scene for your short stories, I think I write toward central thematic moments in my longer stories. The stretch between two such moments then becomes a question of how to get there.

I'm also bad at leaving things unfinished that I already invested time in. Once I've written 20,000 words for a story, the time and effort invested becomes a driving force to keep going for me.

I like many of my shorter stories a lot. But the emotional investment into my larger projects ends up higher in the end. I feel much closer to the characters, not because they are necessarily better, but because they accompanied me for so long in my thoughts.

Why do you ask, @Shocker? Would you like to write more longer stories but simply can't bring yourself to do it? I was under the impression that the shorter stories seem to hit the sweet spot for you.

I haven't written nearly as many short stories as you. But I already feel myself wondering what new story I still have to tell in the short story format. That is why I feel currently drawn to starting a sequel to Record Chaser and Late Satisfaction that focuses on healing and rape survivors rediscovering and reclaiming consensual sex. I think that would challenge me to do something I haven't done before and I would get to explore a new psychological facet. Maybe it's similar for you? Not in the sense that you are interested in the same idea, but that over time you have exhausted the stories you can tell in the short story format? For example, you said that you are usually not good at consensual stories, but when the Kristensboard contest challenged you to write one I think you were doing perfectly fine. So maybe investing fully in some longer story might give you the new impulse you need?

[mcpa1597]

That is why I feel currently drawn to starting a sequel to Record Chaser and Late Satisfaction that focuses on healing and rape survivors rediscovering and reclaiming consensual sex. I think that would challenge me to do something I haven't done before and I would get to explore a new psychological facet.

Looking forward to reading that. I love it when creators branch out, try something different.

[Shocker]

Why do you ask, @Shocker? Would you like to write more longer stories but simply can't bring yourself to do it? I was under the impression that the shorter stories seem to hit the sweet spot for you.

@Claire I was asking because for the last couple of months I could not motivate myself to write at all. The number of abandoned projects on my hard drive increases at an alarming speed, I stopped publishing stories that are in progress, because I hate leaving them unfinished on here.

As for length, 3000 words has always been my sweet spot, long enough to get invested but not too long to lose the reader along the way. Writing the 3500 words for Speed dating took me four days, so I was really just looking at methods to keep motivated.

[Claire]

@Shocker If you're open to a suggestion: You could try giving yourself a constraint to write around. Based on my experience, that can really help with creativity and motivation, not unlike a prompt for a contest. To give you two examples:

A) When I wrote Sweet, Sweet Mess I knew three things: 1) I wanted to adapt the song Mess into a short story. 2) I wanted to include as many lines of the song lyrics directly into the prose/dialogue without them feeling out of place. 3) I would structure the story around abrupt scene transitions that make the reader wonder "How did we get here? Why are we suddenly in a living room and no longer in a cafe?" to capture what it's like to stumble into an affair and wondering how you ended up in your ex's bed. That was a very different writing experience from what I usually do.

B) When I wrote It's okay, I feel a little lonely, too. I knew from the start that I wanted to write a scene where the present and memory overlap and that the memory would be color coded. That was also a fun constraint to write around.

I think you did something similar for your SAM story where you had to write around the fact that the victim could not be touched. Maybe try something like that again? Impose upon yourself a constraint, like... I don't know... you write the story from two different POVs and you commit to switching the POV every paragraph? Start with a structural constraint like that and then fill it with life. That can be very motivating.



@mcpa1597 Thanks, that's nice to hear. Given how few responses both the end of Record Chaser and now the climax of Late Satisfaction got, it's nice to hear that at least one person would read a sequel.

[Shocker]

@Claire thank you for your feedback, I’ll have to think more about it. I don’t think adding additional constraints to my writing will actually help me with my current slump.

[Vela Nanashi]

For me I think having an investment in a character and wanting to see what they do next is what really helps me keep writing. So instead of a fixed single simple goal, I have something that has no direct ending planned, just wanting to see what the character does next. That kind of comes automatically for me always, but maybe doing something nebulous like that would work for you too. Or maybe many goals or more complex goals.

Like for a non con story maybe you have some specific ways you want the victim raped, and then what happens after that with them, and if from rapist point of view what do they do after?

Then you have to ask do you want to see what happens with victim or rapist or both? Who is the protagonist of the story, that kind of thing

You could also have a chain of different rapists for the victim or you know something nice after their rape... or chain of victims for the rapist. Maybe more complex stories where victim is kept by the rapist and maybe he collects them?

[LtBroccoli]

Feels like we have the same problem @Shocker . I'll write a story, get to the "finish line", then wonder what's next? I run into that when I hit the end of a section, or major part but there's more I want to continue. But usually by that point I'm "done" with the characters for a bit, or I have another thread I want to pick up, or another story I want to do. Getting back to an old story takes time, and can show when reading everything back.

Here are a few things I've done to help when I hit that wall.

Ask "what next" on the regular. What is going to happen next, or after that? Is there a goal, situation, or problem you want to see them get into? Having a goal or challenge for them helps push the story along and can break the funk of feeling stuck. Do I want to see a particular scene? How do I get there? Do I need to work backwards or is the path something I can navigate without a map?

What crazy shit can I do to my characters to fuck them over to make their jobs ten times more difficult than it needs to be? I played a lot of D&D over the years, so I treat those as my "Nat 1" moments. This is why my co-author is Murphy's Law. Look at Pharma for an example. Bianca's on the phone leaving a message for her daughter when the Really Useful Crew comes in and shoots up the place. Now they have to deal with an inquisitive and smart kid trying to find out if her mom is okay, and they have to deal with it.

Is the end of this part the end I want to arrive at? That's the hardest when it gets to the story parts. I want to wrap up this section, but I know where the character ends up ultimately and now I have to reverse engineer that. But "I need a break from this shit" hits a lot. I like to keep a short list of work that I rotate through so that when I get sick of one, I can hop into another. Easier said than done.

When it's really bad, like I don't want to write through the slog of getting from A to B, I'll just write B. If I like B, or B does its job (usually the latter) I'll then try to figure out how I got there. Then keep writing the signpost sections until I feel comfortable enough to tie it all together.

The hardest part is coming back to a story I wrote years ago and picking up like I never left. There's an old parable or something about not being able to enter the river again because the river is different and you are different. I'm a different person than I was in 2020 when I started the HCU. I'm a different person than I was when I started Mindwalker Memoirs in like 2022 or 2023. Those differences add up and can affect the story going forward. I noticed this in Pharma. I feel like there's a shift in tone around the late 70's to early 80's as I took a long time off from that story. When I get back to it in Chapter 90, there will be a shift in tone because 2026 Broccoli is not 2024 Broccoli. But that shift can be good because there's a story to tell.

As far as the technical side of things, try writing down ideas of what you'd like to see or do in your stories. Could be scenes, characters, developments, quandaries, whatever. For example, there's a section in Pharma I want to write where two of the women are blackmailed for what happened before the cabin while another has a run-in with the law when they try to investigate things themselves. Having some notes helps keep the creative juices flowing.

Also, keep the list of viable stories in the queue short. I tend to keep my rotation to 3-5 stories at once. One is a screenplay, one is a long form story, and one is a shorter or standalone story. The other two could be anything but are usually different in tone. Maybe a comedy when I'm writing a tragedy, or absurdist when I'm too serious. Keep the number of files open at once to a minimum. If I'm working on Pharma, I don't want another long story open because I might get distracted and dive into that.

Deadlines help too. I'll make a deadline like "This story must be finished/at this section by XXXX." I work good with deadlines. The intro to the 6:00 news is useless at 6:01. It may be my own deadline, but I like having a finish line to get to.

Long story short (too late), keeping the motivation is hard at the major breaks, but for me it comes down to "What Next?" It's why I've never liked the concept of prequels. I know what's coming next, and I really have to either love or hate a character to see the build to the story I've already seen them in. But if I know the story I want to tell in the long road, it helps. And sometimes I want to twist things up. But seeing "What's Next" helps keep the journey going.

[RapeU]

AI is helpful with getting the creative juices flowing. It gave me 4 examples for the prompts of the current community contest:

Here are several story concepts that would naturally incorporate all three prompts.

1. The Last Train Home

Tone: Romantic tension / quiet suspense

Setup

A character waits alone at a rural train platform late at night.

It’s raining steadily.

The last train is supposed to arrive soon, but the station clock keeps ticking louder in the silence.

How the prompts appear

Rain: water dripping from the platform roof, puddles on the tracks.

The Clock Is Ticking: the station clock marking the minutes until the last train.

Alone… or are they?: the protagonist slowly realizes someone else is waiting in the shadows.

Story direction

The other person turns out to be someone meaningful (an ex-lover, a stranger they connect with, someone returning from their past).

They talk while waiting for the train.

The storm traps them together longer than expected.

The ticking clock becomes a metaphor for whether they will leave together or go separate ways.

This would be a very natural romantic or sensual story without needing explicit content.

2. Locked In the Office

Tone: playful tension

Setup

Two coworkers are stuck in an office building during a storm after everyone else leaves.

Power flickers.

Rain pounds against the windows.

Prompts

Rain: storm outside keeps them trapped.

Clock is ticking: security system arms at midnight.

Alone… or are they?: protagonist thinks they’re alone but hears footsteps.

Twist
The person walking the halls is someone they've secretly been flirting with.

Direction

Searching the building together

Confession of feelings

Racing the security system timer

The ticking clock creates urgency and the storm creates intimacy.

3. The Lighthouse Keeper

Tone: moody romance

Setup

A lighthouse keeper is alone during a violent storm.

Rain lashes the glass and waves crash below.

Prompts

Rain: storm battering the lighthouse.

Clock ticking: mechanical lighthouse timer or maintenance timer.

Alone… or are they?: someone unexpectedly arrives seeking shelter.

Direction

A soaked traveler appears at the door.

They share warmth, conversation, and tension while the storm rages.

The lighthouse clock counts down until dawn.

This one can feel very atmospheric and sensual without being explicit.

4. The Midnight Dare

Tone: flirtatious / slightly spooky

Setup
Friends dare the protagonist to spend an hour alone in an old building.

Prompts

Rain starts while they’re inside.

Their phone timer counts down the hour.

They hear someone else moving.

Twist
The “ghost” is someone who secretly came to check on them.

This can easily turn into a romantic reveal.

Sometimes seeing the start of something can help. Of course you have to be careful and can't depend on AI (example 2 is the best reason why you shouldn't depend on AI) but there's nothing wrong with using it as a tool to help generate ideas.

My story isn't going to be about anything the AI generated, but it helped get a different idea going in my brain that I'll write.