You've Been Fixing Your Emotionally Empty Story in the Wrong Place

The experience of doing everything correctly in your novel and still feeling emptiness in something you’ve lovingly written is devastating.

In my google drive rests a graveyard of novels that, although they may be emotionally very loud, they are also emotionally empty. I think it’s devastating to be in that spot because it feels like the problem exists where you cannot find it.

The emptiness you’re feeling isn’t coming from the plot. It is never coming from the plot.

I’ll say that again.

That emptiness is NEVER coming from the plot.

Below are at least four reasons and four places that I know of that can make a story feel emotionally empty.

The good news is that these are all correctable. The bad news is that some of these can cause the other reasons and vice versa.