Surprise Yourself

It is useful in your writing to be able to surprise your audience. It is useful for your sanity to be able to surprise yourself. If you aren't getting excited, anxious, or curious about what you're writing, it may be time for a change.

What gets me the most excited to write a story is to find out what happens next. I have a scene or a character or a situation and I want to know what came before what happens, and what comes after.

Eventually, though, there reaches a point where I have figured it all out. I get writing and I work on the story and the actions and there comes a point where everything falls in place and I know what will happen from there to the end of the story. That is the exact moment where I have the greatest difficulty finishing the story. It is no longer an adventure or a mystery. It's just work. I have to sit down, put one word down after another, and reach the end.

If you ever find yourself in such a rut, throw a monkey wrench into the machine. You're the author. You're God. You can do whatever you want. Even if you can't make your characters do what you want (because of taking n a life and personality of their own), you can still create obstacles, twists and turns at every corner. Try to make up a situation that you yourself didn't see coming.

I will warn that it is possible to hurt your story in this way. Obstacles for the sake of putting in obstacles can be a drag; they can put off the main story while not adding anything. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't make extra twists happen; you may need them to keep yourself interested enough to finish the story. Just be able to make them significant or useful, to show something we hadn't seen before. And if not, just be willing to chop it out in editing. As long as it does what you need, it has served its purpose.