Phlop Morning

Trying to iron out some major holes in my story. Such as character motivation, for one. I get 30 percent into my first draft and find that my main character is just flat running out of steam, so I gotta go back and figure out why he's tired of his own story already.

My story is about a guy with an unfortunate gift. He can create things. They're not good or useful or nice things, but they do seem to have existence, at least for a time. The problem is these things he creates (or miscreates) usually go on to figure in another person's death; usually someone to whom our main character is emotionally tied. So in response to these early misfortunes (the accidental death of his abusive stepfather, the death of three bullies at the grocery store), our hero decides to stay away from people. So by age eleven he's cut ties with everyone and lives as much as possible to himself, by himself. His whole life is centered around the avoidance of emotional upset, whether positive or negative because, as he puts it, "Every emotion is negative. It's just a matter of time."

I really didn't know how emotionally cloistered this guy was when I started writing, though. I thought his conflict was about trusting himself and it is, but it goes deeper than that. It was only through the process of drafting that I figured this out. Obviously I have work to do now. So as I go through the process of analysis and re-writes ect. I'm losing steam.

Losing steam. I like what I've learned about my main character but I'm out of steam.