The Downside of Writing Too Much

I know what you’re thinking: How can writing too much be an issue? Many writers struggle enough to fill an entire book of 40,000 words. That’s what holds most people back from even starting a book in the first place. It’s scary trying to fill in that much blank space with content based off of a single idea.

But I’ve seen writers struggling on both ends of the word count. Some who need to squeeze out a few extra words to meet that 40K – 60K word mark. And others who have 1,200 pages of story, a document that’s way too big and unorganized, and a scope that’s too overwhelming where they become lost in their own monster.

This writing too much issue reminds me a bit of J.R.R. Tolkien’s scenario. I’m currently reading the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings and can’t help but wonder, why didn’t he just pump out more books if he had this much content? Obviously his goal was to just enjoy his worldbuilding and not focus on full length novels, which is great! But some writers whose goal it is to publish books often encounter similar situations and end up focusing too much on developing the world, back stories, character descriptions, languages, etc, where they lose track of what’s important to the actual story, which is…PLOT!

I also have ran into this situation myself with the third book of my fantasy series, The Hoarding. I work in a Word document. And every time I open the Word file, I hold my breath, wondering if it will crash attempting to open 1,695 pages of 437,000 words. Obviously not all of this is story. The document is filled with notes, outlines, character descriptions, writing tips, old chapters, old old chapters, and even older old chapters. I want to keep everything in one place instead of sorting through dozens of different Word files.

It took me awhile to realize that I was victim to writing way too much. And the symptoms are being unorganized, self-doubting myself, unsure of my story, and losing trust in my writing abilities. Because how could I have 437,000 words and NOT be confident in myself of being able to finish a story? I barely had any content to work with in the first book of this series. But I got book one done in a reasonable time.

So how can I have more content now with book 3 and be struggling to finish it? It’s because of all the built up pressure I now face with pleasing my fans, filling in plot holes that I dug deep into since the first book, closing character arcs, and just finally getting to the end of this series. In other words: Fear, my friends. It all comes down to fear. And fear caused me to lose track of my own story, even after already publishing two of the books, and to lose confidence in myself.

It wasn’t until I took a step back, took a deep breath, figured out what was holding me back from finishing, when I realized I needed to commit to story writing instead of consistently outlining and developing things out. Because the constant writing things out became just an excuse to not commit to finishing this monster. I just needed to dive into the unknown, like I had done in my first book, trust myself that I knew my story the best I could and things would fall into place, and fricken WRITE IT.

Have you been thinking about writing a book (or song) and don’t know where to start? Or maybe you’re an experienced writer who has felt stuck and overwhelmed with a writing project? I’d be happy to talk it out with you over a FREE Discovery Call.