One of my greatest fears in life is to write a boring book.
Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a bit. But if someone says my writing is boring, I instantly think they are calling ME boring. Some people would say it’s just my perfectionism haunting me again. But I say it’s common sense. (In my perfectionist’s brain).
The good news is that most “boring” stories aren’t doomed forever. There’s always a way to fix them. Maybe you will have to rewrite a few things, but the extra work won’t kill you —physically, at least.
If you’re writing a story and, for some reason, you’re worried it might be a total failure, I am here to break down 7 reasons why readers get bored and how to deal with them. Just remember that not all reasons may apply to your specific novel because every story is unique in its own way. How you write it is what makes the whole difference.
Okay, let’s go.
1. Flat Characters With No Personality
Characters are the heart of any story. If they’re dull, predictable, or act like cardboard cutouts, readers won’t even care what happens to them. Believe me, your plot can have dragons, murders, and world-ending stakes, and still be boring.
How to fix this:
- Give your characters quirks. Maybe your protagonist bakes bread at midnight when he is feeling stressed. Or maybe your villain is obsessed with collecting weird mugs for some reason. Little details give life to the story.
- Build contradictions. If one thing is for sure, it is that people are messy. Your “tough warrior” might secretly be terrified of thunderstorms. Your “shy girl” could be vicious in a certain debate. We are humans, and humans are unpredictable sometimes.
- Make them want something. Boring characters often feel like they’re just floating through the plot in an endless pursuit of nothing at all. Like, my guy, why are you even here? Give them a goal (love, freedom, revenge, even just peace). If they don’t add anything to the story, why are they even there?
If you want to discover more about your characters, I’ll give you an exercise that can help you with that: imagine if they were at a party, what would they be doing? That answer alone can reveal a ton about their personality.
2. Nothing Actually Happens
Whether we want it or not, we need to pay attention to useless scenes. Just because something is happening, it doesn’t mean you should include it in the story, unless the scene serves a purpose there.
This doesn’t mean every scene or chapter needs a tremendous event, but something has to move forward (plot, relationship, character growth…).
How to fix this:
- End scenes with movement. Every scene must be there for a reason. Make each single one of them count. You don’t have to worry about it on a first draft, but during the revisions.
- Cut fillers. That three-page breakfast scene you wanted to write about? Unless it’s revealing something new about the character, the world, or moving the plot forward, trim it.
- Ask “so what?” after every scene. If nothing changes, the scene might not belong. I know it is a tough decision to cut it out of the story, but we have to do it sometimes.
3. Over-Explaining
Over-explaining everything about your world and the five characters who just showed up, all at the same time, can make the descriptions extremely boring. If your character has trauma, and you want the readers to know every detail about it in one go, you’re going to make them lose interest.
How to fix this:
- Sprinkle info like seasoning. Describe the worldbuilding or backstory only when it’s relevant, and, most importantly, DO NOT explain every single detail in three consecutive pages.
- Show the reader instead of info-dumping. Instead of explaining some of your society’s rules, show your character breaking them and facing the consequences. Discovering things like this is way more interesting for your reader.
- Trust readers to connect dots. You don’t need to explain every little thing. Trust your readers’ ability to understand why your characters are behaving the way they are.
If you’ve got a paragraph longer than half a page that’s just explaining something, ask yourself: Can I turn this into dialogue, action, or a discovery instead? Sometimes it is okay to describe things in more detail. At some point, you will start distinguishing necessary descriptions from boring info-dumps.
4. Predictable Plots
You don’t have to play Arthur Conan Doyle and create a Sherlock Holmes-type of story, but if readers can predict every single beat, there is a chance they will get bored. However, you can avoid it if you build a compelling narrative, usually through good character development, writing style, and other ways to connect with the reader. It also heavily depends on the genre you are writing in.
Overall, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel; tropes exist for a reason. But, needless to say, a little bit of unpredictability can make your story more interesting, especially in fantasy and crime novels.
How to fix this:
- Play with expectations. If readers expect the hero to save the day, maybe they fail.
- Twist a trope. Friends-to-lovers? Maybe they confess early but have to deal with the aftermath. Chosen one? Maybe at some point, they discover that they were chosen by mistake.
- Raise stakes in unexpected ways. Instead of “the villain kidnaps the love interest,” what if the love interest joins the villain willingly?
A few questions you can ask yourself are: What would readers expect here? What’s another route I could take that’s still believable?
5. No Emotional Core
You can have tons of things happening in your book, like plot twists, explosions, huge battles, murders, but they all mean nothing if your reader doesn’t feel anything. Why would they care about what happens in the story if they are not emotionally connected at some point?
How to fix this:
- Give relationships a deeper meaning. It can be romance, friendship, or any sibling drama that you can think of. Usually, by making your characters interesting and relatable, readers will care about the connections they make throughout their journey.
- Tie stakes to feelings. Instead of just saying that a city will burn to the ground, show the reader who will be hurt and why it matters to your character. The trick is that you are already very connected to your story, and this is a natural thing. But you must win your reader’s heart in a way that is more strategic. They don’t know who all these people are and why he/she must care about anything that is going on in their lives. For that, the golden rule is to make your characters relatable.
6. Pacing That’s All Over the Place
We have to agree that only a few things kill a story vibe faster than weird pacing. If it’s too slow, everyone will get bored. If it’s too fast, the readers won’t even have time to connect emotionally to anything or anyone there. One of the most difficult parts for beginners is to see their story as a book, not a movie. Although it may sound obvious, I believe it’s not always like that.
How to fix this:
- Mix intensity with quiet. If you just had a big action scene, you can follow it with a character-driven moment. With practice, you will understand when a scene is dragging too much.
- Cut repetition. If characters keep having the same thoughts over and over again, it can start to get annoying.
- Use cliffhangers wisely. I remember how every episode in “The Vampire Diaries” TV series would end with a big cliffhanger. Honestly, it felt amazing while watching the show, I am not gonna lie. But not every chapter in your book needs one, though ending on a strong note usually keeps readers turning pages. I would say: “It can work. Why not?”. Just use it wisely according to your story’s needs.
7. Stakes That Don’t Matter
Honestly, if nothing feels at risk, the story feels a bit pointless. The stakes in your story don’t have to be something huge like saving the universe from evil aliens, but they need to matter deeply to the characters at least.
How to fix this:
- Go very personal. Maybe the main character doesn’t care about the fate of the kingdom, but they do care about protecting their little sister from mischievous leaders. You see where I’m going?
- Make failure seem possible. If the hero always wins, there’s no tension. Same thing if your character is flawless, aka super boring. Your readers want to feel like things could really go wrong, and, if they do, something of extreme importance is at stake.
Just ask yourself: What happens if my characters fail? If you say, “meh, not much,” your stakes need work, and you need your characters to suffer a bit more if they eventually mess up.
Conclusion
Boring stories aren’t necessarily about “bad writing.” I would say they are just about missing opportunities to make your stories better. If your characters are super bland, your pacing is off, or your stakes don’t matter to anyone, then yeah… You will probably have a lot to fix after reading this.
But don’t overthink it too much. Always remember that readers don’t want perfect, even though our perfectionist minds like to think of it that way. Readers just want stories that make them feel something, and it changes from person to person. Someone is going to absolutely love your story. That is enough to keep going.
I hope these tips are helpful to you in your writing journey.
Happy writing, my friend! 🙂