I'm currently around 400 or so but the last 50 odd have been a nightmare. Nothing's sticking. And if it does, it barely does! I'm finding it difficult to remember the stories, too. In fact, it's rare that I will. No matter how good the story is.

It might be that you've just hit a rough patch. Sometimes there are lessons that I can do completely on my first try. Other times there are lessons that give me fits and pop up in my failed stack time after time after time. Not all kanji are created equal. Not all lessons are created equal.

In my opinion you should continue moving forward bit by bit. Don't let those real tough kanji discourage you. If you have a good story, and make sure to keep on top of your failed stack, there is no reason you can't add some new kanji every day to keep it interesting for you.

Failing the same kanji over and over again sucks, but the key is not to get discouraged and keep moving forward. You will eventually get those kanji. It's just that some take longer to stick than others.

Yeah i hit a rough patch, made a similar post on the forums, people told me to keep on learning new ones, so i did and the ones i had troubles with kinda faded! .
It's better to learn 50 new ones, than be stuck on a few.

Once the kanji is in your stacks it is learnt. Continue reviewing, it's already learnt. Forget about forgetting, putting stuff in an SRS is the same as putting it directly into your brain.

It's learnt.

Some stuff is harder to learn than others. There are definitely some kanji that I have a -very- hard time with, and others that are very very easy. Sometimes they clump into patches... If you got an 'easy' patch, then a 'hard' one, it is going to be frustrating like this.

Keep going. Don't let it get you down. Once you get to easy ones again, you'll get your momentum back and it'll all be good.

Thanks for the motivation. I'll try and press on. Sometimes when I open anki, I see my reviews and just think "eurgh. God." and want to close it down again.

I feel the same way about reviews sometimes. But then I remind myself that forgetting and remembering a kanji is part of learning it, especially in the short term. After I remember it, I find it sticks a little better the next time 'round.

If a character doesn't stick multiple times, that's an indication to me that I need to retool the story.

Also, it might help to review the pointers Heisig provides on page 97 of RTK (well, page 97 of the 5th edition anyways; it's the opening text of chapter 11). I skimmed over it the first time through, but after going back and re-reading it, I've found that his advice there helped me a great deal with remembering characters.

Yo,
reviewing is boooring.

But adding stuff is fun!

And using the stuff you added in a useful situation beats all.

Whew, I've pressed on and I'm glad I did! I'm having fun with these weather kanji. I seem to like things like that for some reason.

The late 300s were a rough period for me (the chapter with roads and the one with the arrow based stuff threw me for a loop). But thankfully, although I still miss stuff, I am getting much better at remembering good stories and thus remembering the Kanjis. I'm actually at the weather Kanji now and am like you, having an easier time (thankfully.)

I'm in the late 300s as well. definitely hitting a rough patch with these not sticking, but like everyone says, just keep on adding cards!

I don't know about you guys, but my biggest problem has always been connecting the keyword to the kanji. I hardly ever forget the kanji elements. I think this is because I specifically think of a location for every kanji I memorize. Try doing that.

i also have a tough time with element-construction. i tool my stories typically so the elements read left-right, top-bottom, which solves issues of which of two kanji go on the left (many of heisig's stories reverse the natural written order of appearance).

however, it's tricky when sometimes there are two kanji above, one below, or one above, two below, or two on the left one above the other, and one on the right. often i'll remember a story, and even the elements, but neither one helps me remember the organization of the elements. that can get frustrating sometimes.

I don't think I had that same problem. I got to the point where I could guess pretty well where the elements went. Example would be the taskmaker primitive usually goes on the right side. 糸 pretty much always goes on the left, and very rarely on the bottom. 言 will also go on the left most of the time, but with 糸 it will be on the right and with the quarter primitive will go on the bottom.

It is something that takes care of itself in the long run. Remembering the primitives seems far more important.

Nukemarine once posted that he only started to be strict about the positioning of the primitives in his reviews after the completion of RTK. I did the same.

What you can't do is think everything is gonna end when you add the last kanji in the SRS.