first draft

It seems that most people give up when the well is dry; and all wells dry.

@jannert I particularly appreciated your post. I'm going to use that to refill the well, and to breathe some new life into the project. It was written in the first person, so I'm going to change it to the third. From Hemingway to Maugham - that's the inspirational shift!

 

I too save bad stories, and stopped ones as well. Never know when you feel
the need to continue one or laugh at how bad some of your stories can be.

Also from what I am hearing from many is, that it is perfectly acceptable to
have a sequel come out several years after the first book.

Though I would not be to orushed to finish anything considering how well
the first one went over. So I suppose I could waste some time working on a
shorts comp, or something else.

 

I would start again, but use the elements that did work in the new draft. I'm really into planning, so I'd make sure I had a good sense of what needed to happen before I started. I think a lot of the stuff we write that doesn't work comes from writing ourselves down a blind alley.

 

Yeah, I stopped my second novel nearly two years ago halfway through at over 50,000 words. I got distracted by other things while at the same time realizing that I didn't have enough material for the latter half of the book. I still plan on returning back to it at some point - there's a lot of great stuff already there, I just need to revisit and flesh it out. Some day...

 

Just a small shift like using a different 'person' (as in first, third, etc) can make a huge difference to the way you feel about the story. So can changing your POV character to somebody else. You can try telling a scene or the while story from the viewpoint of a different character. I did that in two scenes I wrote for my novel. Instead of the woman wondering what the man was thinking, HE was wondering what SHE was thinking instead. This really snapped the purpose of the scene into focus without changing the story itself. All sorts of stuff can make you look at your story differently—which is probably what you need, to re-ignite inspiration.

 

The fun is to backtrack a bit, and see where the blind alley started. Then take a different turning. I get just as excited fixing a problem as I do with my original idea. Sometimes even more so. The original idea is kind of dreamy ...oh, I'll write a story about (whatever). The fixing moment is more focused and more exciting. HEY! NOW I know how I can make that work! Stunningly obvious! Okay, now I'll need to change thus and such, but HEY. This is going to work!

 

Sometimes I just stop feeling a certain story. For shorts, I usually need to finish them in a small amount of time before the initial spark wears off, otherwise it'll just languish forever. For novels, I too put them "on hold" when I lose interest or just run out of ideas, but I do expect to eventually come back to them. The fourth novel I worked on (and completed a first draft of) was actually something I started while working on my first novel and stored it away for years before coming back to it.

That said, I've been really lax on a lot of writing-related projects lately, but I don't know how many of them I would consider canceled or scrapped.

 

Yep; at least once per book, usually twice. I call it my 'crisis of confidence' point, when I start to think that the whole story is so boring/bad that nobody will ever want to read it. But I ignore it, maybe send a chapter to someone who's willing to give their opinion, and get over it.

There's only one story I 'scrapped' because I didn't think I'd be able to sell it. I hope to rework the uncommercial elements and finish it in the future.

 

when you pantsed yourself into a dead end of a long maze of twisty passages all different (or alike)

in the end if the novel is to be good it has to be logical organised and make sense

isnt it far easier to make sure that happens by moving 3x5 cards around on a table top
each with a phrase that would tell you what the scene was about
before you wrote reams of verbiage that are harder to shuffle and sequence easily
and which you would end up throwing away resulting in much lost time and effort

line up the dominoes first
then you should be able to write a good first draft following the sequence you already verified

alternatively use excel
put the scene numbers in column 1 (what)
put the time in column 2 (when) details here may not be needed as long as the domino sequence is correct
short phrase describing the scene in column 3 (what) if you must add the how and where if you need it for a reminder
then in 4 the characters (who)
and finally in col 5 the MRU - why are you here and where do you go next in the domino chain (why)

if you need to insert a C to get you from A to B then add a row and keep making progress

it is far easier to see the path through the woods when you are in a balloon above the trees making a map before your trip

 

It's easy to say "never!" It's easy to say "finishing is a skill!" These are valid points.

But there comes a time, sometimes, in my experience, when I'm so bored with a story that it's worth starting on something new.

 

If a story does not have anything of substance or a reason for someone to be interested in it, then scrap it. Chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. Next time you will know that you need to build out the main plot more, give the characters some humanity (i.e. inner pain/struggle), have a specific direction you are trying to take and show your reader, don't tell them, where it goes. Do not forget you are also the reader as well as the writer.

If it's simply a matter of not starting it out correctly or having something that hooks the reader, then maybe it's just a matter of starting over. The idea might be good, and maybe the plot might need work, but it's fixable. Do not ever be afraid to simply start over from square one. I've done this quite a lot. I learn each time, and every time I read old stuff I wrote I see how much I've improved since, so don't necessarily throw it away, keep it for later. When you're feeling down again, pull out all the stuff you've written before and simply read it. It will make you feel a lot better seeing how far you've come.

 

Not all trees carry fruit.

Some stories just aren't meant to be written by you.

 

Good advice. I've written many stories in my teen years that I'd be ashamed to show anyone.
However, I kept the good ideas from one story to the next, and the next, and the next. My novels are all about those ideas now that I can write them without being embarrassed.
Keep the ideas, throw away the bad stories. Ridiculous stories are good for practising. You'll need the practice when you're ready to write those ideas properly.

(That advice was for young writers, mostly. If you are what people call a pantser and your problem is that you've written yourself into a corner... I don't know.. You can always "pants" something else?...)

 

I'll finish the first draft just for the sake of finishing it. If in the end of the first draft I still don't like it, then I won't revise it.

 

Yeah, that can happen. It's not a problem as long as that's not what happens to all your stories. If nothing ever gets finished, though ...it's a problem.

 

I think this happens a lot with writers, but less after finishing their first novel. I must admit I've never really abandoned a story. I'm quite stubborn in that way.

Well, there is one situation where I have let go of a story, but that's only because I managed to lose everything that I'd written (around 15,000-20,000 worth). Sounds really dumb, doesn't it? In my defence, it was because I went into hospital and was ill for quite a long time, so when I finally got back into writing much later, I had changed computers and lost the data, lost the memory stick, and only had access to it on my old email account. Unfortunately, Hotmail had decided to not let me back into that account because of hackers, and as I couldn't remember my secret questions (that had been created when I was 13) I couldn't access my work. Sucks, doesn't it? The only bits I did save were the first two scenes, and one of them has been posted on here already.

One day, though, I may return to that story. I think I was getting better as a writer around then.

There are numerous times when I feel a little anxious during the writing process, though. Because I don't plan very much or always have a concrete story in mind, I am sometimes worried where it'll go next or if it will make any sense. Luckily, I always end up writing something, and mostly I quite like where it goes. But I've got to say I think I am better at finishing what I start than necessarily thinking up ideas in the first place. On the ideas front, I don't have many at all. Quite sad really. But once I start writing I like to really stick with it.

 

It sounds as if your writing method is similar to mine. The thing to keep in mind is that NOTHING you write ever needs to be kept, if it doesn't work. So if your story veers off track, that's fine. Just get it back on track, and get rid of the stuff that doesn't work.

The benefit of pantsing is that you will get great ideas partway through—stuff you didn't think of at all during the planning stage. If you're pantsing, you feel freer to pursue those 'better' ideas, and maybe create a different perspective on the story.

Until you actually publish, nothing is set in stone, so there's no fear. That's why I advocate NEVER rushing to publication. The time to get varied feedback from as many betas as possible, and do detailed editing and proofreading of your MS is BEFORE it goes up on Amazon for sale, or goes off to agents for consideration. (Not afterwards, when you realise it isn't selling as self-pubbed, or that no agent wants to touch it.) If you're self-pubbing, don't fret about your back cover blurb or your cover design until the story itself is polished to perfection. And even then, don't rush the blurb or the cover design either. They can help or hurt your chance of sales.

There is no good to be had by sending out half-baked writing. It will come back to haunt you. I'm always startled by how quick many people are to get their stuff 'out there.' Once it's out there, you either have to retract it or live with it, if it's in need of more work. Once you have established a reputation as a 'not very good' writer, it's difficult to get people to come back and read more of your stuff.

 

That sucks! Losing your work sucks, period!
On the other hand, many of us end up rewriting our first draft anyway. Losing it might be an opportunity for you to realise if the idea was that good to start with that you're willing to write it again, this time (even) better.
This said, nowadays I keep copies on two different hard drives and the latest version in the cloud as well, just in case.

 

Hello,

Since the first draft (rough draft) is already finished and written out with tons of mistakes needed fixing (plot wise and grammar errors), then what is the process for rewriting and re-editing into the final draft? I feel stuck at this point with incomplete outlines and without direction, like there's a whole collage of different ideas I can put into the final draft but each idea strays too far from the main themes (which I want to stick with), and it ends up being a completely different novel from the original idea.

So, what are the steps to finishing a final draft that a community of writers perform?

 

It'll be your next draft, likely not the final draft.

Probably the best, shortest answer is: chip away at it.

 

First drafts (aka rough drafts) are like clay you mold as you go later on.
Start with a lump, and start shaping it. Sure right now you don't like how
things are panning out, but over time and with some decent feedback and
editing, you should end up with a vase (or something that resembles one).
So if you don't like what you have written, you can always change it so that
it works for you. It is not set in stone until you say it is. Good Luck.


Speaking of Drafts, I could go for a pint later today.

 

I do a reverse outline of my first draft. From there, I'll create another outline for the second draft, which are improvements made from the first one.

 

==========

You take your existing draft and analyse it.
Scene by scene with a one liner to remind you of that scene without a lot of cluttering details.
Then lay them out on a table top with 3x5 cards in sequence.
Now you can see at a glance if they flow logically. You can see if there are holes. You can spot what is unnecessary clutter.
Shuffle the cards around to make it all flow ready to topple like dominoes in a line when you push the first one.
Now with the correct skeleton of the story connected and solid you can easily add the rest of the tissue to make it complete.

Before writing I would put it on excel with one column numbering the scenes.
The next one with the one liner, then add other columns for location, characters, actions/reactions, motivation, etc. as you find would be helpful to keep from making silly errors or contradictions as you write.