I am 62,000 words into my vampire romance, Persephone Reborn, and I have hit a brick wall. Despite having a plan of over 10,000 words the story has come to a grinding halt and is just not working. I love my beginning, and I know how I want the story to end, but the middle isn’t going where I want it to. As a result I haven’t written anything further on it for weeks and I can’t see how to fix it and this is the second time of trying.
Whilst I’m very attached to my lead characters, my villain is practically non-existant, working behind the scenes to sabotage the two protagonists and stop them from getting together, but that means she is invisible to the reader. My dilemma is whether to persevere with trying to find a solution to the bits that aren’t working or to ditch the work I’ve done so far and hope that at some point in the future I can find a way to save it.
Stubborn me wants to stand my ground and refuse to quit, but practical me knows that if I’m not happy with it, and I’m not enjoying writing the story I should let it go, for now at least. So that is what I’m going to do. Who knows when inspiration will strike and everything will fall into place, and if not I think there’s a chance I could recycle the characters in another story.
My daughter tells me that vampires are making a comeback with the release of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire, and I should be riding on its coattails, but I told her, vampires live forever, so it’s ok if I miss this wave and catch them next time.
In the meantime, I already have another story whose characters have been bugging me to write it for quite some time. They’ve slowly insinuated themselves into my every waking (and sleeping) moment, determined to make themselves heard. I plan to do things a little differently with this one, so we’ll see how it goes.
Nel Ashley - Indie Author 