How to pick up where I left off

[SparkleDaydream]

So I have a problem, when I'm writing a story (or writing an assignment) I can usually get "in the zone* to get started, but if I need to stop before it's finished I can never get back in to the flow again!
I have so many half or less drone stories saved, that I would love to finish but I just can't.

Does anyone have any tips for getting back in to the flow again?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I think every writer here has a file of well-started stories. I certainly do. Every writer, I suppose, had to find their own solution. I let them lie fallow, so to speak, until the proper moment arises.

When is the 'proper moment'? It could be a contest for which the story is suited. It could be a comment on the Lit forum. It could be a story suggestion or request. It could be an incident, on-screen or in real life.

Why those? There's the key question - I guess they trigger a connection with the partial story.

Sometimes I go back and just add a scene, even a couple of paragraphs, before letting a story sit for another while. It works out.

 

[SparkleDaydream]

Maybe it's just a sign I'm just not a writer. The idea is still there, but never the right words to continue later.

It does make studying difficult though! I have to write essays in a single sitting or start from scratch when I come back!

 

[davion2308]

White Knuckle it

I have written stories halfway then lost control. It sucks when it happens.

My process is to keep writing, white-knuckle and just finish the story like a college term paper, and then give it a day or five to rest. I'll go back and read what I wrote, hating it half the time, and finding what I can change and edit.

I'd rather "edit" a whole new story into an existing story than try to pick up when the feeling is right.

Finish the damned thing, read it again a few days later, make it better. That's what works for me.

 

[amofiga]

@sparkle... I'm sort of in the same boat as you. I got to chapter 14 of a "novel" I started called "The Helton Society". I was going great guns with about a chapter every other day until the COVID thing hit. Rather than using the "lockdown" time to write, the whole thing just sort of took the wind out of my sails until about a week ago. One of the women I communicate with here who also writes finally got back into it and published a story. It motivated me go get back into it and the other day I finished Chapter 15. However, I also got motivated for a one chapter wank story that was influenced by our recent need for refrigerator repair and thoughts of a couple having a nice time with the repair man.

So my advice is to perhaps force yourself a bit to get started again. I've learned that sometimes I'm not that motivated but once I get my dirty little mind working through my fingers at the keyboard, I can get rolling. Good luck

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Hey, when you find out, let me know.

 

[CuttingEdge]

I can give you two suggestions:

A good story answers these basic questions: Who, what, where, when, why and how. Look back through what you have written and see if maybe you missed some answers to those questions along the way.

You can also consider changing an element of one of those questions. Like lets say you have a cockold story and the white wife is with a nice black man. Well imagine if you changed the "when" to instead of being today, or now, back to the 1930"s...how scandalous would the story be then?

 

[CuttingEdge]

The other suggestion is:

Look at the details and see if you can add some. Details are in the senses: taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound. Did a scene miss out on some of those, and can you add some details in?

I try and incorporate taste into some scenes because it is the hardest one to include, BUT when done well, it really makes a reader feel as if they are there.

Example:

Jennifer drew nervous as she walked across the old manufacturing facility's floor. It had been years since the old wooden floor had endured the scurrying of factory workers feet about it, but she could still smell the acrid smell of the old gun powder that had lingered and drifted around the trillions of tiny cracks of the old hemlock. Just the dust she kicked as she walked barefoot across it, caused her to sample the Sulphuric taste again, something she had long tried to erase from her childhood memory.

 

[Jada59]

In general I just am able to read what I have written, then pick up where I left off. But...

I attempted to write a story with my daughter (not Lit. material). She was not interested. I have four chapters written. I keep re-reading it and am stumped.

Reason being, I wanted to make this timeless. And I failed. For instance, I mentioned nachos, buttons, zippers, etc. All things that didn't come about until a certain year.

But in typing this out, I just had a thought. Since the story is at least partially fantasy (I don't want to reveal the plot too much), I could have it be a conglomerate of all sorts of decades. It is set in a place that could be here on earth, but isn't. The characters are all human.