Why WIPs die

We all have them. Paper ghosts in drawers or digital phantoms that appear, vainly waving their titles every time we search for a file. They are the Ones Who Never Were, the ideas we chased fervently, half-heartedly and then not at all. They lie in the WIP graveyard of lost hope.

There's a saying that every author has at least four failed MS in a drawer before getting good enough to publish. This is definitely true for me. Four is a low number, actually. And at the beginning of my fiction attempts, I couldn't figure out why my WIP ideas petered out half-way through an impressive word count.

So after intense naval gazing reflection, I came up with the following six reasons our shiny ideas tarnish in digital drawers.

1. No clear idea of the ending. Yeah, this seems obvious but I've been known to get so excited about a concept, I just dove right in and figured the ending would unravel itself the closer I got. This HAS happened to me ..but it's the exception.

2. Premature feedback. I was in the middle of a very cool supernatural WIP when an online critique site opened for beta testing. Totally jazzed at the idea of fresh eyes adoring my new creation, I threw it up there...and got stuck revising the beginning so many times in response to criticism, I lost enthusiasm for the whole thing.

3. Wrong setting. If our setting doesn't call to us, we don't want to go down the writing rabbit hole. I find all kinds of excuses not to go. I had this happen with one of my current WIPs - figured out I didn't want to be where the book was set and changed the setting. Voila! In love again.

4. Affair with a new idea. I'm currently fighting this one. A dystopian I started based on a really interesting concept is now taking second place to an action/adventure story set in Israel. In my case, this kind of goes back to #3 bc right now, with an Alaskan winter looming, I'd rather be in Israel in my head. When summer comes again, I'll long for Maine, the setting of my dystopian. Or so I hope. *fingers crossed*

5. Boredom. If this list was in order, this would be #1. The story doesn't sizzle. It lays there limply in the pan like a piece of wet bacon. There are so many issues with the MS - plot holes, weak characters, dead-ends, crossed genres - it's easier to walk away.

6. It's too big. Your idea requires so much research or draws from an area of expertise you don't have, that you write yourself into a corner. Your WIP is an unwieldly monster threatening to overwhelm you so you consign it to digital darkness.

This is a short list, so please share your WIP killers, as well as what's helped you overcome your WIPs death throes, in the comments. I'll be taking notes!