So, I’m more than half way through writing the novel I’m currently working on, and I’ve hit a snag.
My characters have all gotten lazy.
They’re doing nothing. They’re talking about what’s happened so far, and they’re going through the motions of their day to day lives, but they’re not moving my plot ahead in any visible way.
And I’ve gotten bored with them.
How bored?
Ha. Good question. I’ve gotten so bored with them that I’ve quit writing about what they’re doing.
In fact, I’ve quit writing about them all together.
I haven’t even checked in with them in over a month.
Why not?
Yeah, I don’t know. They’re a good bunch. They’ve come a long way. They literally (shameless pun) amazed me when they first started out on this journey of theirs.
They managed to accomplish a lot that would seem beyond their normal abilities without making me feel like their story was just so much fantasy stuff.
But now, they seem to be resting on their laurels. And I’m a little upset with them.
Wait a minute …
Yeah, yeah, okay. I know what you’re thinking. You’re saying to yourself, “Whose fault is that? They’re your characters!”
And yeah, okay, that’s true.I created them in my mind. They came to life because I imagined them, made them up, gave them lives to live.
But up until now, they’ve been mostly responsible for this story. I’ve just been writing it down. They took the lives I gave them and started living them.
I swear it’s true!
And yes, I may have just become an observer, but they kind of started writing the story on their own and now I don’t know how it ends and they seem to think it isn’t something they feel like letting me in on.
I know this sounds like I may need some help from a psychologist or psychiatrist, but just hear me out.
When I write a song, it’s almost like I’m channeling it, just the scribe if you will. And short stories are often the same.
How’s that?
Well, I get an idea and I start writing it down and it just all seems to fall into place.
And when I started this story, it happened the same way. The characters started interacting and I was just writing down what happened.
And now I’m over 58,000 words in and they’ve just run out of steam.
I know how it’s supposed to end …
I do. It was part of the original idea. But I’m damned if I can get them to finish off the plot and live happily ever after.
I’m actually afraid that they don’t want to do that.
I’m kind of worried that they’re enjoying the story so much they don’t want it to end.
What am I going to do?
