The Last Mile Trial: Why Finishing A Series Is So Damn Hard

Mid-November, 2019

It started with a writing slow-down. 

After seven years of work, I was on the home stretch of my first-ever epic series. I had three chapters written for the sixth and final book, with the end in sight and a solid idea of how I was going to get there. I was also on a roll. In the last six months, I’d sprinted books four and five back to back, shattering every writing record I’d ever set. One of those records remained unbroken for a further three and a half years. 

A scene was niggling at me. I opened my manuscript to leave myself a note, but when the document loaded, I stared blankly at the “last edit” timestamp at the top of it. It had been four months since I’d written a single word, and I hadn’t even noticed. 

I wish I could say it was a temporary lull. 

Screeching to a Halt

A full year later, I’d written a smattering of chapters, but made no substantial progress on that sixth and final book. I was running out of posting buffer. So I set myself a timer and vowed to sprint the rest for NaNoWriMo—after all, a good challenge was often all it took to get my ass in gear. I hit my 50k goal, but not a word over. It was a terrible grind. When the month ended, I closed the manuscript again with three chapters left. Surely that should have been enough to just get the thing done. But writing those three chapters took me another ten months.

What happened? At the time, I honestly couldn’t say. I still loved the world. I still loved the characters. More than ever, really. I wanted to give them closure, and an ending that would do justice to the near-decade I would eventually spend on their story. I knew my plot. I’d been looking forward to some of its scenes for years. I was excited for the end, and my existential dread about it had been tempered by starting other books, including other series.

As if all that wasn’t enough, my writing speed had leaped by an order of magnitude since I’d penned the first book. There was no rational reason for the final one to take longer than any two of the other five combined. Nor why, even when I psyched myself up and set aside dedicated writing time, I just couldn’t seem to write. 

Not Just a “Me” Problem

Over time, I realized I was not alone. I began to hear about slow-downs from my series-writing friends, their friends, and their friends’ friends. I heard about them in traditionally published series, with some authors taking decades to release a final book. Series-writers all throughout my social circle were hitting the penultimate, climactic stories of their works, and then hitting a wall. It happened irrespective of writing speed, writing time, genre, project length, or commitment to completion. And nobody could explain it any more than I could. 

Years later, I’m on my third epic series. My second clobbered me with the same phenomenon when it hit book four of five. And while I don’t have all the answers, I’ve got a better understanding now of what I call the Last Mile Trial: the unnecessarily gruelling slog through the final books—or even chapters—of a long-running series.

The Last Mile Trial has no single cause. It would be easier if it did. Instead, I suspect the wall that so many series-writers hit comes from a multitude of factors, with each writer suffering from a slightly different set. Here are the ones I have identified:

Sheer Complexity

There are so many things to hold in your head by the time you reach the final books of a series. Every chapter takes more thought. Massive things are happening, but they must happen fast, and you can’t do fast. But because you slow down, details begin to slip from your memory, making the complexity even more intense. Even the best tracking documents may not help: they too are gigantic by now. This can become intensely overwhelming, and no one can blame you for feeling it. 

Performance Anxiety

Picture a series as an airplane. If it’s your first series, you’ve never landed an airplane before. If it’s your second or third series, you’ve landed an plane once or twice. Everything relies on this landing. It must build on everything you’ve built before, without losing the plot, the magic, or the essence of the story. All your audience is counting on y—wait, why are you getting nervous?

In Too Deep

Stories evolve as they’re told. You may have set out to write one thing, but written yourself into any number of additional layers: unexpected themes, complex social or political situations, even worldbuilding details you’re not sure you know enough about. You may have written your way into a plot corner you don’t think you have the skill to fix. Are you even qualified? You’re not sure anymore. 

Novelty Exhaustion

It doesn’t matter if you’re a plotter or a pantser: by the late books of a series, you’re barely discovering any new plot, places, or characters. If you are, you have a craft problem; this isn’t the time to keep introducing new things. It’s the time to finish character arcs, fire Chekhov’s Guns, and possibly circle back to familiar places. The villains are the ones you’ve been foreshadowing for ages. Many (if not most) things that need to happen are already set in stone. You just need to get there… but now writing risks becoming a chore. 

Plot Hole Crunch

Any small but cumulative issue is magnified tenfold in the climax. You can no longer overlook small flaws you would have brushed off earlier, because they’ve become plot-hole-gouging vortices. Any worldbuilding decision you’re less than proud of may also come back to bite. Worse, fixing any of these requires editing—if not rewriting—an entire series’ worth of words. It’s a daunting prospect for anyone, but it gets worse. If an author falls into the trap of continually rewriting or re-editing the same series as they improve, they may never actually finish it. 

The Notorious 60% Mark

A book’s midpoint is a massive, impactful, plot-altering beat. If an author has landed that correctly, their next challenge is harnessing the fallout of that beat. Their characters must respond appropriately to the midpoint event, experience its emotional ramifications, choose forward action, and take that action in a way that carries them naturally through to the climax without losing plot momentum.

This beat is incredibly difficult, even in standalone books. It’s a directional change on a highway going 90, and if you stall, fumble the steering wheel, look the wrong direction, or any number of other minor mistakes, you’re flying off the roadway. And in a series, it might be whole books long. Even the most experienced of authors struggle with this. 

Life Situation

How long have you been writing the series? What life stage were you in when you began? How many new responsibilities have you acquired since then? How many new demands on your energy? That energy likely isn’t going up, either… getting older can make writing even more rewarding, but it can also make it hard. 

Boredom

You can love your series, your world, and your characters, and still be ready for a change. Compounding this, your series now takes up so much time now that multi-drafting (if you’re a multi-drafter) is harder than it’s ever been. You may be drawn to newer projects just for the change of scenery. Shiny New Toy Syndrome kicks in. You get easily distracted. You are, quite simply, bored.

Emotional Exhaustion

This one is especially likely in genres like Sci-Fi or Fantasy. If you’re in the final books of a series, chances are, you’re covering the lowest moments for your plot and characters. There may be a loss of lighthearted or funny content that once kept you engaged. Relaxing “downtime” scenes are harder amidst climactic pacing. Your characters themselves are likely traumatized. That can wear on you after a time. 

The Quality Gap

You’ve gained hundreds of thousands of words of writing experience since you began this series. You look back, and the first books is no longer up to par. You can see everything you’d do better now. You want to fix the early books, and you may even need to, for the roots to support the final branches. But all of that takes stress and work and time. Even if you resist the urge to edit, dissatisfaction with the earlier parts of a series can be demotivating in and of itself. 

Fear of the End

You can be ready to move on from a series and still be scared to let go. Will you ever again love characters as much as you’ve come to love these ones? You may have known them longer than you’ve known some real-life friends. They may have seen you through good times and bad ones. What will come after this, to replace the importance this project has held in your life? You’re not sure yet. Or even if you have a replacement ready, it won’t grow to fill the hole in your heart until years down the road. So you hold on instead. 

Diminishing Returns

It takes more to get a peep out of your readers these days. Large numbers have dropped off over the course of the series. Many who used to comment or discuss new plot points regularly have gone silent. The ones who keep showing up are loyal, but they’re not as openly excited as they used to be—and those getting excited over the beginning of the book don’t always help as much when you’re trying to write the ending. 

You’re Just… Tired

You’ve been at this for a long, long time. It doesn’t excite you as much as it used to. It doesn’t twist your heart the same way. You know where you’ve been and you know where you’re going, so the emotional highs can be more difficult to come by. You just need the series to be done already, but the hardest part is still ahead, and you just don’t know if you have the energy to tackle it.

How To Fix It

If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. You’re far from alone. Nearly every series-writer goes through this, and it often hits hardest if the series in question is their first. 

So how do you get through the end? This is by no means a comprehensive list, but here are some suggestions that have worked for me or friends of mine. Not all of them will work for you, so feel free to pick and choose!

Enable Your Own Stubbornness

Your characters deserve their ending. Your readers do, too. And won’t you feel so much better once the series is done? How good will this look on your metaphorical resume? Pick whatever reason works best for you.

Rediscover What You Love

Do some introspection on what first made you fall in love with the series. Is there anything you’ve lost from scenes that once excited you? Romantic tension? Humor? Banter? Pantsing? Find a way to work those back in. Even if you cut them later, they will make great bonus content.

Treat Writing Like Work

You may not want to do it, but it needs to be done. Set yourself targets and reward yourself for hitting them, rather than expecting them to be their own reward.

Reframe Your Thinking

If you find yourself mourning the loss of novelty with no way to return to it, try to reshape that mental narrative. Identify what you appreciate about the series’ familiar elements, and lean into that. The feeling of accomplishment will be different, but if you’re lucky, it will still exist. 

Plan

For many people, this is one of the most effective ways to reduce performance anxiety. Plotting lets you polish and stress-test your book’s structure before having to write it. Make a list of every loose end you still need to tie up. Identify your ending, if you can. Then identify what steps you need in place for your characters to reach that end point. Plot forwards from where you are and backwards from the end simultaneously. Fill the gap between them with loose pieces and Chekhov’s Guns. Run your outline past a critique partner or trusted reader. Make sure to ask them what you’re doing well, as well as what needs fixing! You need the motivation. 

Pre-Plan Your Next Project

If you struggle with fear of finishing and losing something important to you, don’t wait until you’re done one series before you start to plan whatever comes next. Especially if that next thing is another series. Give yourself a cushion to land on when you finish, instead of the bare ground. 

Bait Yourself

If you’re the type of person who easily falls prey to shiny new idea syndrome, don’t let yourself start that shiny new project until you’ve finished the one you’re slogging through. If that’s too long a slog, break it into smaller pieces: you can spend the evening on the shiny idea if you finish an old-series chapter first. 

Hype Yourself Up

Revisit heartwarming reader comments and reviews. If you don’t have any saved, start a folder of them. Call it your ego file. It helps, believe me. 

Write Offline

This can help you care less about reader attrition, because it won’t drag you down in real-time. It can also free you from some level of reader expectation, if you struggle with that.

Write For Yourself Again

This can help if you’ve lost intrinsic motivation. Take a posting or publishing hiatus. Ban yourself from checking reader numbers for a while. Set things to auto-post, if you can. Focus on what you want out of your books, and maintain that narrative as best you can.

Give Your Ending Permission to Suck

First books and last books have this in common. Relieve yourself of the obligation of perfection. Let your drafts be crap. You can’t edit a blank page. 

Give It Time

Final books may take twice as long as earlier ones, if not longer. This is normal! If you’ve imposed artificial posting pressure in yourself, release yourself from the obligation. Your loyal readers will wait for you. If you’re published, talk to your agent or publisher. They may have release deadlines, but those deadlines might be flexible, especially if they’re a smaller press and/or your series has performed well thus far. 

Give It Pressure

On the flipside, if you need pressure, turn up the pressure! Run down your buffer. Make public accountability statements. Find a writing buddy.

Don’t Expect It To Fix Itself

Don’t wait around for the inspiration to return. It may very well not. If you want to see your series through to the end, you might just have to buckle down and force-write the remainder. Sprint it. Set a goal and grind it out. It may not be fun, but such is life.

Conclusion

If you see yourself in this post, or if any of these suggestions help you, give it a shout in the comments below! Other people may be out there reading this and wondering if they’re alone in their experience. If you’re a reader waiting for your favourite author to finish their own series, please be patient with them. Give them your support, and let them know you’ll read the next chapter or book whenever it comes. If you’re tired of waiting, meanwhile, you can find something else. Just do it quietly. The author you’re waiting for probably feels terrible enough already.

If you’re the writer of that series, meanwhile, you’ve got this. Best of luck!

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