Writing Long-Chaptered Stories - Comments

How do you keep yourself interested in your current project?
With me I try to stick to only one story at a time. Which isn't working well because I have two up on Mibba right now XD But really, I guess I don't have a way I keep myself interested. Honestly I get bored of stories really fast and want to move on to a new project a lot, I've been like that since I started writing in like, elementary school. I guess the key is to remind yourself that you don't want to leave stories behind, and that you'll feel 10,000x better once you complete that story and know you did it and it's a reason to celebrate.

Is there any way you motivate yourself?
Motivation wise, I like to daydream my story sometimes. I daydream scenes that may or may not have happened, and I think that gives me a want to continue my story. Another thing I'm doing is keeping a monthly track of how many words I write and what days I haven't written. Seeing that pattern, on how many days a week I did/didn't write, kinda reminds me that I may be getting off track and need to sit and write, or tells me I've done a good job and it's okay if I take a few days break. I wrote a blog here about it in more detail if that interests you :)

Do you feel like planning ahead is a good idea or not? I kind of have mixed feelings.
I guess that depends on the story. Some stories I plan ahead for and some I don't.

Do you keep notes outside of the work and if so, do you find them helpful or distracting (notes as in, plot points or like a 'skeleton' of the story / things you've mentioned)
Yes I do and I find it helpful. I keep mine in a notebook or typed in a document and saved to my external drive.

How many chapters is even long enough?
I don't believe in having a set amount of chapters. Sometimes I see other users talk about their stories, and how they just started it and it's going to have X amount of chapters until it's completed, and I have not figured out how to do that XD I just write until I find an ending I like and get there, and then the story is finished for me.

How do you keep yourself interested in your current project?
I consume copious amounts of fiction, so it's inevitable that eventually, I'll come across something that reminds me of my characters and I'll drop the book right there like "I have to go back . . . BACK TO WHERE I CAME FROM." /zooms back to my story/. Other than that, I imagine an extremely emotional scene in the future of my story and mark it as a goal, and my goal is to get to writing that scene, without writing "filler."

Is there any way you motivate yourself?
I talk to people about my writing, make playlists, flail about my characters. You can also get a buddy and be like, "Hey yo, let's word sprint," and you set a specific time span and race to see who gets the most words.

Do you feel like planning ahead is a good idea or not?
Extensively planning ahead is not good for me, but it depends on what type of author you are. I knew someone who laid out every single detail and action and wrote them on scene cards before writing (so basically they probably already had 5k of planning before they started writing their 100k story). Some people I know don't plan at all and end up with a draft they reorganize into a more structured plot. I personally only lay out one scene, like I said in the first answer, and mark it as a goal. I don't know how I'll get there, but I'll get myself there.

Do you keep notes outside of the work and if so, do you find them helpful or distracting (notes as in, plot points or like a 'skeleton' of the story / things you've mentioned)
I sometimes do, but 99% of the time I lose them and go YOLO-writin' on the story. If I do find them though, they are really distracting, unless they're character charts. I love me character details.

How many chapters is even long enough?
Depends on the story, honestly. Depends on you. C:

Basically get to know yourself more as a author and try out a ton of new things and you'll find your own solutions, since everyone's writing style is different.

How do you keep yourself interested in your current project?
By having a good plot, good characters, and just continually thinking about it throughout the day. Usually I can't wait to get to a certain scene, or meet a certain character, or something like that. If I can't stay interested in it and don't like what I'm writing, then I feel like it's possibly not that good of a story anyway and people might not read it.

Is there any way you motivate yourself?
I think taking breaks when I need it is the most important. There's no point in sitting down to write and writing a crap chapter because I wasn't really in the mood for whatever reason. Word count goals are also really helpful, as long as they're a realistic goal! It's always great to get closer to it and then surpass it - makes you feel like you've really accomplished something.

Do you feel like planning ahead is a good idea or not?
It depends, on both the author and the story. In general, I'm someone who has an idea for the outline of the story, so general paths the characters will take, the ending, a possible theme or two, maybe a scene or two that I really want to include, that sort of thing. But I don't plan out each chapter/scene, I don't have a detailed outline for anything, it just comes to me as I write it. I definitely think that it helps when you get writer's block, because if you're winging it then you have nothing to refer back to and can really get stuck, whereas having a (semi) structured idea in mind before you start helps along the way. But if the story is really complex, then it will need more planning of course.

Do you keep notes outside of the work and if so, do you find them helpful or distracting (notes as in, plot points or like a 'skeleton' of the story / things you've mentioned)
Again, depends on the story. If there's a key fact I must use, then I'll keep a note of that. I already mentioned keeping track of some plots and whatnot above, but I do delete them once I've written them (which is also partly motivation - reducing my ideas list until it's eventually all gone). Things like character development sheets or setting profiles are useful to have if you want a certain level of consistency and detail in your story, but again, that just depends on the type of story that's being written.

How many chapters is even long enough?
Depends on the story, again I used to have a set word count, or a set amount of pages on Word that I'd aim for, but I found that that can really inhibit my writing. It means I put in filler dialogue that's unnatural or irrelevant, that I add in descriptions which makes it too much, or that I add in other unnecessary sentences that the chapter would be far better without. I think it's far better to just go with the flow.

I currently write as a scene = a chapter, so I can have very varying lengths, and I think that's okay. Sometimes a scene is perfectly complete after just 500 words, and sometimes there's so much going on that you need to write over 2000. In a way I think it's good to keep the readers on their toes, not knowing what's coming next, make a short scene more impactful rather than lost amongst a larger chapter, and keeping it interesting (sort of how it's good to write some short sentences and some long ones to make it easier to read, rather than just one length all the time). At least I hope that's how readers feel anyway - I haven't had any complaints about chapter length variation

Hopefully some of this was useful!

How do you keep yourself interested in your current project?
I just think of all of the events that I want to happen in the future of the story, and that usually makes me excited to write. Or sometimes, and this may be a little weird, I think of what it would be like to be that character and just tapping into the characters mind gets me interested in the story again.

Is there any way you motivate yourself?
If I can't write something every day for the story, I just continue to think about it and what stuff I can add to it. It gives me the motivation to sit down and write and just makes me excited to write it. And when I get stuck (which is quite often), I just take a break and do something else that takes my mind off of it.

That and aiming for a certain word count, usually about 1500 - 2500. That way, I have a place marker to pass as I'm writing. Getting closer and closer to my goal is always exciting.

Do you feel like planning ahead is a good idea or not?
Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I've tried having an outline, but it didn't quite work for me, so I just decided to write down all the ideas that I came up with for the story and it's helped me a lot more. For my nano story last year, I outlined my story just a piece of dialogue for each chapter, which is different and gives me a free reign on how I want to write the chapters.

Do you keep notes outside of the work and if so, do you find them helpful or distracting (notes as in, plot points or like a 'skeleton' of the story / things you've mentioned)
I have a small stack of note cards that have some ideas for stories on them. It helps me remember just in case I don't come back to the story for a while. I think it's very helpful just in case I come across a scene that I'm not up for writing; those ideas can help me continue the story and it gives me something to look forward to writing in the future of the story.

How many chapters is even long enough?
It depends on the story. For nanowrimo, I try to get my novels up to about 25 chapters so I don't have to write a whole lot of words for the chapter. But if I don't have a set word count, I roughly outline important events in each chapter just to see how long I can actually make it.

But, like I said, the amount of chapters doesn't really matter; it's how many you want your story to have. You can have a small amount of chapters that contain 4,000+ words or have over 100 chapters that contain less than 1,000 words. It's all up to you.

How do you keep yourself interested in your current project?
Write at least something every day and make sure the idea in the first place is one I'm passionate about and can stick with. I try not to distract myself with writing anything else or I get derailed.

Is there any way you motivate yourself?
I guess aiming for my usual chapter word count (2000 words minimum) keeps me writing.

Do you feel like planning ahead is a good idea or not? I kind of have mixed feelings.
Yeah, me too! I usually don't plan much; everything is vague and prone to changing. Putting yourself in a strict linear pattern stifles creativity IMO, and you might leave out a really cool idea just for the sake of an old one.

Do you keep notes outside of the work and if so, do you find them helpful or distracting (notes as in, plot points or like a 'skeleton' of the story / things you've mentioned)
For some stories that need more research I have a folder in my bookmarks. I save things like house designs, medical jargon, dates of birth, eye color, hair color, etc. Things that can be forgotten too quickly but may need to be referenced later on. I started a family tree for one of my stories.

How many chapters is even long enough?
I don't go by chapters; I refer to word count. You can have 60 chapters but if they're all 300 words, I don't think it matters much. That said there's really no number that's good or bad. If you're trying to make an 80k+ word story, like most novels, I would say you need 40 chapters minimum. It depends on how many words you have in each chapter, though--I do 2k because that's about all people can tolerate reading at once. It lets you get a plot point out with concise detail.

Anywho, that's my $.02. Writing long stories is really satisfying and you get incredibly close to your characters after spending thousands of words with them. :) And 50k words in a month is nothing to snuff at!