If the line writing is lovely, but the story still falls flat, check for these surprisingly hard-to-spot problems.

You’ve written a draft of your novel. It’s a pretty good draft, actually. Maybe you’ve revised it—once, or twice, or five times. The line-by-line writing is evocative, and a lot of the scenes are exciting and fun.

But.

Come on, you knew there was a “but” coming. You can feel it in your gut. Your story is just not doing everything you want it to do.

There’s something missing. Something not quite right. The ending isn’t paying off the way you want it to. Even though you structured your story with care, crafted the plot and cross-checked it with every story outline you know, something is still falling flat.

You’ve taken it as far as you know to go. So why isn’t it working? And what can it possibly still need, when you’ve done everything you know to do?

I have met so many writers at this exact moment. And I’ve noticed common patterns cropping up again and again—three incredibly common, surprisingly subtle pitfalls stories tend to fall into without their writers even realizing.

I can’t guarantee that your story has any of these problems. But what I can tell you is, if your story isn’t landing the way you want it to yet, these three pitfalls are the first things to check. And the best part is, when you solve even one of them, that solution will cascade down to make so many more things work even better in your story.

So if you’ve taken your story as far as you can, and you’re not sure what to do with it, here’s where to go next.

Links mentioned in the episode:

• Get my feedback and find your story’s Next Right Step: alicesudlow.com/nrs 

Go deeper with these episodes:

• The Hidden Half of Your Protagonist's Goal (That Makes Story Structure Work)
• How to Figure Out What Your Character REALLY Wants
• The 12 Core Genres That Power Every Great Story
• How to Use Genre as a Revision Tool (with Savannah Gilbo)
• One Insidious Cause of Disappointing Endings (and How to Fix It)

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