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I was being very serious. I posted to you on the another thread saying I would start the writer's thread because I believe that one of the best things that can happen during the writing process is critique and advice from someone who is willing to help the author succeed. That is what I pictured the thread evolving into in.

So, your advice function should not shrink but increase. Writers need other writers to help hone their craft. (That's my opinion) It's what the Bible calls iron sharpening iron.

My advice to you, carton, is to begin your novel with the end in mind.

Which is not to say that you should know exactly how it goes from beginning to end before you start; rather, it just means that you should understand your story arc. Unless you find that it really works for you, I strongly advise you NOT to start writing at Chapter 1 and proceed sequentially to the end. Rather, I suggest you write the important story scenes, then fill in the sequences between them.

Writing a novel is a form of storytelling. I'm a big fan of the old dramatic structure used by the Greek playwrights. You start by introducing characters and establishing the primary conflict, the initiation of which is the dividing line between Acts I and II. Act II is the rising action, escalating conflict to a crisis...which marks the division between Act II and Act III. Act III is resolution and denoument. If it's a tragedy, everyone dies; if it's a comedy, everyone gets married and/or otherwise lives happily ever after. So if your novel has run out of steam by chapter 4, I suggest that you take a couple of clean sheets of paper and sketch out A. Who the characters are, B. What the major conflict is, and C. What the resolution will be. From there you can ask other questions, like "how with the protagonist be changed by the conflict?" and "what interesting secondary characters could help complicate things in Act II?"

Once you've got that much done, you should have some ideas as to the answers. When you've got at least some halfway answers, take some more paper and write a high-level outline of your story from beginning to end.

Yes, I know, as hedonistic experiences go, outlining really sucks, I mean in an epic kind of way. But bite the bullet and do it, because it will show you where your story's going. Then when you run out of steam once again, in Chapter 7 this time, you'll know where to go. Just check your map (the outline) and head off in the proper direction.

There. I hope that was helpful. It was grossly simplified and there are many other ways to write a story, and many complications you can add to story structure, but those are the basics I use and they have stood me in good stead.