If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you will know that I’m writing a fantasy trilogy and have achieved very little, writing-wise, for the last five months. The work stalled two thirds of the way through the current WIP. My mood has varied from despair to anxiety to a shoulder shrugging laissez-faire ever since. But even under the laissez-faire there lies a feeling of desperation. You see, I really do want to write this monstrous little opus. I love the story, I love my characters and I want other people to love them, too.

But before people can love the books, they have to read them. And before the books can be read, I have to write them.

Which brings me full circle. I’m stuck.

I suspect it’s because somewhere deep inside I know I haven’t got the story properly pinned down yet. The problem, I think, might lie in the fact that the overall storyline covers several generations, and I have skipped a decade and half about one third of the way into the present book. Now, I don’t know about you, but I resent it when a writer introduces me to cast of interesting characters and just when I’ve become drawn into their story, deserts them, jumps a sizable gap of time and starts anew with an almost completely new bunch of people that I have to get used to. I don’t like it. It’s not fair. I feel cheated.

Apparently I’m not the only one, because the only two people who have read the whole thing in one go both screamed in frustration. How dare I deprive them of those characters! Who is this crowd of strangers I’ve dumped on them? What happened to the other lot? Where are they? Bring them back!

Not bloody likely, sez I. To write the story I want to write, I have to move on. Those characters have served their purpose. If I carry on writing about them, I will be writing a different story. A story I don’t actually want to write.

Stalemate.

But to be honest, deep inside, I have more than a sneaking sympathy for my poor readers. As I’ve already pointed out, I also hate being cheated in this way. So I am working on ways to keep at least the main Bad Guy from the early chapters in the story, but that is, I think, the best compromise I can make. And I can think of no way to avoid the time jump. I have to allow the next generation to grow a little before the story can go on.

In any case, I have promised to leave the work alone for at least a month to give myself some distance from it, so I'm trying not to panic. But it's hard. I miss my imaginary playmates, old and new.

What do you think? Do you hate it when characters you’ve come to love or hate make a sudden exit? Do you dislike time-jumps in a narrative? What other pet hates do you have in stories? Don’t be frightened: your secrets are safe with me and the other forty or fifty people who read this blog every week:-) We are waiting to hear from you!