: Re: I'm not enjoying my attempt at a science-fiction novella; should I continue? I'm only 12, and I've been writing seriously since last year. I tried writing a novel before (I wrote only 5 chapters;

@Nimeshi163

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Remember that your creative time is valuable and rare. If you're having trouble thinking of something, there may be a deeper flaw which you only realized after starting.

Sure it's possible to write yourself out of a flawed story premise. I've done it several times with amazing success. But you have to prioritize your projects and make sure you're not wasting too much precious time on a project that you only feel lukewarm about.

Believe me, if a story idea is interesting or compelling enough, it will continue to dog you until you get it done. There is no shame in putting off projects indefinitely as long as you don't make a habit of it.

A personal aside: I am in the middle of two short stories which have some flawed premise/structure which make it very hard to shape well. I'm applying myself to both stories, but I feel the gnawing appeal of other new projects. As a 51 year old, it is hard to walk away from a flawed story idea -- and sometimes there is value in completing it because you may discover possibilities about the idea which you hadn't realize it had. All this time while I'm working on it, I'm thinking about other projects I should be working on whose narratives would flow more naturally.

To put it another way, teenagers have brilliant story ideas but have limited understanding of the mechanics of narrative and how to avoid overdone tropes. Older writers don't have half as many brilliant ideas, but have a better b.s. detector and are more comfortable using language to create complex and original narratives.

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