A Tale Unfinished

This challenge is a bit different than the others I have entered. If I am able to bring some organization to my often chaotic thoughts, I hope this article will help not only me, but other amateur writers out there who have the same struggles. There has to be more than me, right?

P. W. stared out across the frozen lake. A pair of sparrows tussled on its glass gray surface. Pecking at what was likely to be some bit of seed dug up from beneath the snowy field and dropped by an unfortunate bird as it flew overhead, heading further south to winter. Her hazel eyes struggled in their nearsightedness to watch the scene unfold. Wind whipped ferociously at her once golden, fine hair, now dull and straw like. The harsh Nebraska air chapped the skin of her cheeks, weathered prematurely by a life of disappointment and hard labor. It was here. By the shore of this lake, he promised to return to her in the spring. That was five years ago. She knew by now that his promise was an illusion. Something to appease her as he left. And yet, she returned every year, knowing full well she was a fool. The squawking of the birds echoed in her ears as she watched them take flight. The feel of his love that autumn all those years ago, for one brief moment, reawakened something in her. Something she thought long dead. Something she longed to feel again. To feel as if she was floating. Flying high above the land and the lake. Like the two sparrows. And so, she knew. She would return to this spot again in the spring. And wait for a man who would never return.

The paragraph above started as my piece for the Frozen Lake Challenge back in the summer of 2021. I can’t believe it has been five entire years, and I am still not much further on this piece! Not only did I not finish an entry for that particular challenge, but after just the one paragraph I realized this story would also not be finished any time soon. Not as a short story anyway. I am no writing expert, but I know my shortcomings and struggles as a writer even if I can’t always easily fix them. As you can see, this excerpt is nothing more than the beginning. It’s too short to really have pacing problems, structural issues or plot holes. Those kinds of flaws I intend to address once I finish the first draft---if I ever do, fingers crossed! Instead, this article is going to focus on reasons even the first draft remains unfinished.

Reason Number One: Vocal Challenges ARE challenging for me! I am a pantser by nature. Well, probably closer to 80/20 if we’re going to get technical, but that being said any kind of restriction tends to squash my creativity, and therefore, whatever story I am currently creating or recording (I’m a bit of a weirdo who tends to think of my characters as real live people who exist only in my brain). When a character begins to “speak” to me I get a little obsessed leaving a trail of sticky notes and flow charts, sometimes even “journals” or “interviews” recording their lives and what drives them and how they feel regarding whatever story they “live” in. I have a lot of “meh” ideas that go nowhere, but on occasion an idea comes forward that has a little sticking power to it. For better or worse, when a character emerges with a story to tell, I try to run with it. I get into writing frenzy’s just to get the story or part of it out of my own mind for my own sanity. A lot of writers thrive on prompts and plots and outlines. I generally have an idea of a beginning and an ultimate ending or fate, but I rarely have the whole thing mapped out. So, beginning with a prompt or a genre rather than a person trying to break out of my imagination can be extremely challenging to me. Add to that trying to fit their exploits into the framework of a short story and most of my challenge entries just never come to fruition.

Reason Number Two: This particular piece is a prime example of starting in the wrong format. I wrote one paragraph and immediately realized this story is a novel, not a short story. There is simply too much to unpack. Trying to condense it into one vignette of the whole would be doing the story, my characters and future readers, an injustice. I am currently working on this piece or rather trying false start after false start when I get the hankering. Out of the three novels I’m working on, it is the least complete. I have my character profiles done, I love the cast I’ve created, and of my WIP’s it’s the story I most want to write, so why can’t I push my first draft past the first chapter? Well, I have some ideas on that.

Reason Number Three: My protagonist is boring. Maybe boring is too strong a word. She’s not compelling. To carry a reader through a story it doesn’t really matter whether your protagonist is a saint or the worst person to exist ever, what matters is if they are contributing to their own destiny. How many of us are willing to follow a villain just to see them get their comeuppance in the end? How about rooting for the good guy to finally succeed after making mistakes that hinder them, but teach valuable lessons? I’d guess most readers. We want active characters, not just punching bags that get pummeled by whatever the author decides to throw at them.

In this piece, my protagonist is very docile. She is very accepting of her lot in life and to change her into someone she’s not, would upend the entire novel and lessons she has to learn by the end. I have in mind someone like Elinor Dashwood. Unfortunately, in the current state of my manuscript, PW is reading more like a push over “special snowflake” who’s a case study of murphy’s law. She’s got no spit in her fire, no stake in changing her fate because she’s resigned to it and I haven’t yet figured out how to give her actual personality while still keeping her in character.

Reason Number Four: First drafts aren’t meant to be great. They’re not even meant to be good. They’re meant simply to get the idea onto paper as a whole. The real magic happens after they’ve sat for a while, (A good several months when you’re not worried about challenge deadlines) and you can come back with your editor head and begin the whittling process to turn that block of wood into a work of art. I know this. I keep the first draft of my completed novel on my computer to remind myself of how much that changed from the sappy, head hopping mess it began as. The problem is that first draft for some reason poured out of me in all its soap opera glory in a matter of two months.

--After a good six months to distance myself from it, the second draft DID take substantially longer. It went through another two drafts before I sent it to beta readers. —

Despite that, I can’t seem to get over the quickness of that first draft. When I struggle with any of my other projects, I can’t help thinking about how easy it was to draft that first novel instead of the realistic expectation that drafting a full-length novel is not typically a fast process.

I keep expecting my first drafts to be well written instead of just…written. That, for me at least, is a very difficult head space to escape and it is not at all productive. I don’t know if my writing is good. I don’t know if I can finish another book. I don’t know that I’ll ever have the courage to publish the one I did finish. I didn’t graduate college with a degree in anything having to do with literature. I know nothing about the publishing industry. I sort of detest social media and self-promotion, so I have no kind of following on any platform. In other words, I have a big fat case of Imposter Syndrome.

Reason Number Five: The fifth and final reason this particular project is still loitering on my Scrivener not anywhere close to completion is simple, but also another psychological one. I tend to write sweeping types of stories that span decades, sometimes with multiple POV’s and/or protagonists. This particular story, while set in a time period I love, is also a time period long before I was born. The amount of research needed for anything from technology and everyday life, to phraseology, to world and regional events is daunting. Again, this is something that doesn’t necessarily need to be ironed out in the first draft, but it’s a lot. I tend to find myself wandering back to my projects that take place much more recently and do not cover so much actual time. When I have time to write that is!

So, there you have it! The reasons I failed to thus far finish this story are:

• It began as a prompt, which, as a pantser, is generally difficult for me to begin with.

• When I finally came up with an idea, I quickly realized it is too large to be contained in short format.

• I haven’t figured out yet how to fix my protagonist without fundamentally changing her as a person.

• I get too critical of myself when drafting and generally doubt myself in my ability.

• The amount of research for the specific time period of the novel is daunting and time consuming.

I still believe in this story, while it sits on my computer mostly neglected I do still plan to finish it. One day. In the meantime, I continue to read every craft book I can, learn what I can from authors and experts on Youtube, and try to hone my skill in the hope of someday sharing more of my work and reaching more readers with stories I hope inspire, spark thoughts, or at least entertain. And I hope that this rambling is helpful to any writer who has some of the same struggles I do. If nothing else, know that you are not alone!