So you’ve been writing a novel. You took the plunge, and with a guiding premise and a chapter-by-chapter outline — or perhaps with little more than a vague idea — you wrote a thrilling opening line and started following the misadventures of your cast. But now things have stalled, and that shiny idea for a full-length book no longer seems so shiny. How can you finish your novel, when finishing feels like just one more impossible thing?
First things first. Know that you’re not alone. Starting a novel is hard. Writing a novel is hard. Finishing a novel… well, it might be the hardest thing you’ll have done in your creative life so far. But it’s not impossible. And here’s a secret: once you finish your first novel, writing and finishing the next one (and the next!) becomes infinitely easier.
How to Finish Your Novel
The first step is to commit. Say it out loud and write it down: “I am going to finish this novel”. There’s a reason you started writing this book in the first place; cling to that. Commit right now to not letting your story die. If you haven’t told anyone else you’re working on it yet, then now would be the time. And if you do have an accountability buddy for your writing, then this is what they signed up for. Time to light those beacons and call for aid.
As for the second step — that entirely depends on why you’ve stalled. There are many reasons a novel becomes harder to write as we move past all the fun stuff at the beginning and start tackling the dark dismal middle. There are lessons to be learnt and challenges to be overcome, and not just for your characters.
What follows is a list of the 5 most common reasons your writing has stalled — along with targeted exercises to help you overcome each roadblock. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully with a little dedication and a bit of introspection, it’ll help you get over your biggest hurdle so you can follow your story through to the end.
Reason #1: You Don’t Know if Your Work Is Good Enough
Perhaps the biggest reason so many novels end up unfinished is a lack of confidence. This is an entirely natural reaction to doing something new, and it’s also a feeling that can be extremely uncomfortable. So uncomfortable, in fact, that it stops you from ever doing more with your writing than scribbling down the odd scene here and there.
How to finish your novel when you lack confidence:
First off, recognize that what you’re doing is hard. It may be new, it’s always going to be challenging, but also it’s only the first step to becoming the writer you always dreamed of being. Recognize that you are learning with every word and sentence that you write, and that even if this novel ends up in a bottom drawer for the rest of your days, it won’t be the end of your writing career.
No, this novel, your first novel, is just the beginning. But you have to finish it. So here’s an exercise to try if you’re feeling a lack of confidence in your writing at the moment:
Grab a notebook and a pen, or another set of writing implements — ideally ones disconnected from the screen. Set a timer for ten minutes, and start writing the WORST novel opening you can imagine. This is your permission and invitation to write badly — to rely on cliche, to mix your metaphors, to insert ham-fisted dialouge and one-dimensional character tropes. Continue writing this travesty of a novel opening until the timer runs out.
Now, take a moment, breathe. Appreciate the fact that you know what bad writing looks like — and that you absolutely know how to do better. And when you return to your novel, allow yourself the grace to write badly if you need to — all you have to do is get the draft done.
Reason #2: You Don’t Know What Happens Next
This is a particularly common syndrome amongst pansters, though watch out planners! No matter how meticulous you are at outlining, all it takes is one character developing a mind of their own, and this can happen to you too.
This problem often takes on one of two forms: either blank page syndrome — when you can’t seem to summon any words to the page at all — or else the creeping sense that you’ve gotten lost in the weeds, and that stuff is happening on the page without purpose or control, pulling the ending further and further away from your grasp.
How to finish your novel when your plot has stalled:
If you’re a hard-core panster, then I’ve got bad news for you — this problem is most easily solved through some sort of outline. If you’re a planner, then good news! You get to do your favourite part of the process — again. So planners, pansters, plansters, and everyone in between, get out your notebook, and let’s start thinking about your plot.
Part of knowing which direction to take is knowing where you’re trying to go. So if you’re lost in the weeds of your novel, let’s take a moment to look at the big picture, starting with your ultimate destination: the End. If you haven’t yet decided what the resolution of your novel is going to be, take a moment now to brainstorm several different outcomes for your characters and for thier main conflict.
Once you’ve figured out which resolution feels most appropriate for your premise and tone, go back to the beginning of your work, and take an inventory of what’s happened so far. Finally, ask yourself, at the current point in your novel, what is still standing between your protagonist and the ending you have in mind? What else will they have to do to get there?
Make another long list of events, actions, and scenes, then narrow it down according to your characters personalities, their conflicts and goals, and the tones and themes of your novel so far. That should give you some clearer options for where to go next.
Reason #3: You’re Tired of the Story
Perhaps one of the worst things that can happen during the writing process is the loss of joy. One of the most debilitating forms of can’t-finish-my-novel syndrome, this is a natural consequence whenever you’ve been working on one thing for a long time.
It’s not unusual to start feeling this way with any project — especially one as big as a novel. Much like a relationship, once the honeymoon phase wears off, following through on your commitment can start feeling like hard work. The key here is to work through your disenchantment to rediscover the joy.
How to finish your novel when you’ve lost inspiration:
By far the best way to do this is to reconnect with your novel’s first spark and rekindle the source of your creativity. There’s a reason you started writing this story way back when. That reason is every bit as valid right now as it was when you first started. In the process of writing and revising, trying to wrangle your plot into something that makes sense, and learning about your characters, maybe that primary inspiration has been lost. Here’s an exercise to get you to reconnect with it.
Let’s time travel. Set a timer for 10 – 15 minutes. With notebook and pen in hand, close your eyes, and think back to when you first started collecting inspiration to write your novel. What were the resonant images? What was it that enchanted you about the characters and plot? What were the big, scary feelings that urged you to put fingers to keyboard and started you on the path to writing a book?
Note all of these down on your paper, trying to capture as many thoughts, feelings, and images as you can before the timer goes off. Now look at your list. This is going to be your love list, and if you can highlight the items that you still truly connect with and that resonate with you, you can use them to guide and inspire the rest of the novel.
Reason #4: You’re Struggling with the Ending
On the other hand, maybe you’re past the dark dismal middle. Maybe you’re even coming to the final battle, the climax, the ultimate confrontation. But despite everything you and your characters have done to get to this point… for some reason, you can’t imagine how your ending is supposed to work.
You could look at this as a subtype of Reason #2, and some of the same caveats apply — for example, this is again a much more common problem with pansters. But planners can also struggle with actually getting the big emotional confrontations down on the page — and that’s okay! Because I’m going to let you in on a big writing secret:
Endings are HARD.
Everyone struggles with the first page. But some people don’t even get to the ending — and those are so much harder, because the stakes are high: you no longer have to intrigue your reader. The time for planting questions is over. No, you have to satisfy their curiosity, tying up the plot, character arcs, and theme all at once.
How to finish your novel when the end escapes you:
First off, acknowledge all the work you’ve done to get to this point — you’ve ALMOST FINISHED an entire goddamn novel, and that’s an achievement! Most people never get even this far. But now it’s time to sit down and think about what you and your characters have learned.
Buckle up — we’ve got two separate exercises here, because endings are hard. So are you ready to finish your novel?
CHARACTER
Endings are about change and resolution. For each of your characters, write a short description — a paragraph at most — about who they are at the beginning of the novel: their personalities, goals, wants, flaws, morals, values, and conflicts. Next, take a look at them through the course of the story. Which ones are on the path of change? Which ones have managed to change the world around them?
Now, In order to narrow down some possibilities for the ending of your novel, go through your character list one more time, this time writing down a description of what thier ideal ending to the story would be. Pay special attention to your protagonist in this case, as well as any major antagonists. This should spark a few ideas for the ending, but we’re not done yet.
THEME
The other side of writing a satisfying ending may require us to examine our themes. Thinking about what you’ve written for your novel so far, make a list of four or five potential themes that have emerged from the characters and situations.
Start out with some abstract ideas, such as found family, morality, war, courage, love, hate, pride, etc. Now, once you’ve got your list of big one-word themes, flesh each of them out into a primal conflict: is your novel about Love vs. Responsibility, Greed vs. Integrity, Good vs. Evil?
Finally, think about each of those primal conflicts and boil your thoughts about them down into a big, simple truth. For example, if your conflict is Love vs. Responsibility, are you trying to say that “Love conquers all” or that “Loyalty is more important than infatuation”? If you’re examining Good vs. Evil, do you want us to understand how “Good always triumphs” or that “Evil can never truly be eradicated”?
TIE THEM TOGETHER
Okay, I lied. These two exercises are actually one exercise, because character, plot, and theme are all intimately linked. So take a look at those simple truths, and compare them with the endings that your characters want. Which endings speak to your truths? Which ones subvert them? Which ones will require your characters to strive and change the most? These are the endings you want to focus on.
Now, all you’ve got to do is choose one, and start writing.
Reason #5: You Don’t Have Enough Time!
In some ways, if this is your main obstacle, then that’s a good thing: it means that the story’s still burning inside you. You’re not struggling with what to write or how to say it — instead, you’re struggling against something that can feel much bigger — the interference of life.
This obstacle can be so awfully frustrating. Time is precious; time is limited. But if you’re truly committed to finishing your story, then your number one priority has to be finding the time for it.
How to finish your novel when you don’t have enough time:
Okay, there’s not really an easy answer to this because time is finite and so is our energy. All of this can be exacerbated by things like suffering from chronic illness (physical or mental); having a full time job (especially if it’s inflexible); having little humans to take care of; or all of it at once (I feel for you, all my spoonie parents).
The only real way to approach this is to take an inventory of your life and figure out what you can give up or delegate — whether that’s letting the house become anything other than perfectly clean, an extra 40 quid to spend on a child-free evening every week, pushing back your hours at work to take advantage of early morning creative energy, or staying up just a little later to write while the moon rises.
Even if you can commit to saving just 10-20 extra minutes in your day to WRITE, you can use it to finish a novel or build your practice. It’s never easy. It might take years. But there’s no set timeline for these things — lives are messy and always will be.
And once you’ve figured out where you can get those extra ten or twenty or thirty minutes, I’ll refer you to this writing guide by Elizabeth Spann Craig, who has laid out some excellent techniques for utilizing those short blocks of time to write more.
Let’s Finish Your Novel
I hope you found some of these thoughts and exercises helpful. Whether or not you’ve found the time and motivation to get back to the page, know that your story matters, and you don’t have to go it alone. If you’re looking for more guidance, I offer free 30-minute consultations to writers, and you can always get in touch to share your story.
