Parting ways with a story or its characters can be a challenging experience for any writer. The emotional attachment to the world and the people created through writing can often hinder them from progressing to new ideas and projects. However, it’s essential to learn how to deal with these parting thoughts in a healthy and productive manner.
Here, we’ve compiled some strategies to help writers guide this process and move forward with their creative journey:
1. Acknowledge and Accept Emotions
It’s important for writers to recognize and accept the emotions that come with parting from a story or its characters.
Allowing yourself to experience these emotions is crucial because it helps you progress. By acknowledging your feelings, you are giving yourself the opportunity to reflect, learn, and grow from the experience. Instead of suppressing or ignoring these emotions, it’s healthier to give yourself permission to feel them and understand why they are present. So, whether it’s nostalgia, reluctance, or even sadness, permitting oneself to experience these emotions is the first step in dealing with them.
2. Closure Rituals
Writing a story can be an intense and emotional journey, filled with ups and downs as we delve into the lives of our characters and create intricate narratives. However, just as in real life, every story must come to an end. In order to find emotional closure and transition smoothly into new writing projects, it can be helpful to engage in closure rituals. These rituals provide a symbolic way of saying goodbye to the world we’ve created and the characters we’ve grown to love.
Here is some examples to consider:
Sharing with Trusted Friends or Fellow Writers. Sharing your story with trusted friends or fellow writers can be a powerful way to find closure. By reading your work aloud or discussing it with others, you invite external perspectives and gain a sense of validation for your efforts. This can also provide an opportunity for closure through feedback and discussions, allowing you to tie up loose ends and gain a fresh perspective on your work.
Example: Organize a small gathering (Could be a group chat) with fellow writers or close friends, where you can share excerpts from your story and engage in meaningful discussions. This shared experience will help you bid farewell to your story while celebrating the creative process.
Closure Rituals could also involve writing a farewell letter to the characters, or, creating a piece of art related to the story.
So consider creating closure rituals to symbolize the end of this chapter in your writing.
3. Engage in New Creative Activities
To overcome the hesitation of letting go, you can immerse yourself in new creative activities. Exploring different writing prompts, experimenting with new genres, or engaging in unrelated artistic pursuits can help shift focus away from the previous work. By embracing new challenges and exploring uncharted territories, you can open yourself up to fresh inspiration and creative growth.
Here are a few examples of how writers can engage in new creative activities to overcome the hesitation of letting go:
Exploring Different Writing Prompts:
One effective way to transition from a completed work is to explore different writing prompts. These prompts can be found in writing books, or even by creating your own. By challenging yourself to write in response to these prompts, you can discover new themes, characters, and storylines that provoke your imagination. This exploration allows you to detach from your previous work and embrace the excitement of new possibilities.
Example: If you’ve just finished writing a dark and intense mystery novel, try a writing prompt that focuses on humor or romance. This shift in tone and genre can help you break away from the previous work’s mood and immerse yourself in a fresh creative experience.
Engaging in Unrelated Artistic Pursuits:
Sometimes, the best way to overcome hesitation and find closure is to immerse yourself in unrelated artistic pursuits. Engaging in activities such as painting, photography, music, or even dance can provide a new outlet for creativity. These pursuits allow you to explore different forms of expression and tap into your artistic instincts from a different angle.
Example: If you’ve just completed a novel, consider taking up painting as a new artistic outlet. Experiment with colors, shapes, and textures as you create visual representations of emotions or scenes from your story. This new artistic endeavor can provide a refreshing change of pace and help you release any lingering attachment to your previous work.
Set Clear Goals for Future Projects:
Setting clear goals and objectives for new writing endeavors can be a motivating factor in moving forward. Whether it’s outlining a new story, setting deadlines, or planning a writing schedule, having a clear direction can help writers transition from the old to the new.
Embrace the Learning Experience:
Recognize that every story and character created is part of the writer’s learning journey. Embrace the lessons learned from the past work and carry them forward into future projects.
Note that, it’s important for you to understand that parting thoughts are a natural aspect of the creative process, as this article aims more to provide assistance in overcoming parting thoughts and reigniting your creative flow.
We hope that the suggestions mentioned here can help you move forward and inspire you to produce more exceptional works. We look forward to witnessing your future creations as you continue to develop your writing journey 📖🖋
