MY NOVEL SUCKS!!! (help)

So, I have been working really hard on my novel this summer. I thought things were going great (minus a few snags and rewrites), but I finally felt good about my first 50 or so pages. I asked my significant other to read it aloud to me. I wanted to hear the flow and be able to pick up on things my ears might notice but my eyes gloss over. It was horrible. After about 20 minutes I made my lover stop. It just felt like unnecessary torture. My lover said "Just clean it up a little." But I think it needs a lot more than that. I don't know what to do. It felt like my best work when I was writing and reviewing it on my own. Now it reads amateur and like nothing more than a pathetic attempt at novel writing. It sounds like I'm trying too hard and not trying hard enough at the same time. I don't know if that makes sense, but you'll have to trust me that it's not very good. I can't just continue with the story, not when what I have so far is basically unusable or needs some major overhauling. But I also feel really sad about this. Maybe that sounds silly, but I have been really trying to write a good story with this novel, and it breaks my heart a little that it's a joke. I'm a joke. Have any of you felt like this? How do I get over this and get over myself so I can get back to work? I would love to ask you guys how to get better, but we've all heard a million suggestions for how to do that, and trust me I'm trying all of them. I just really wanted to love my novel and think it was great. I really don't know what to do now. This is my most serious post here. This is the one where I really want help from you guys the most. I don't know where to go from here and I feel like a sh!t writer.

 

Stop thinking about what you've written. Most people's first draft of their first novel sucks. I mean SUCKS. Is unreadable, laughable. You need a turd before you can polish it.

Forget about this and DO NOT READ BACK a single word until you've finished your first draft. Then you can figure out what needs to be improved and tackle it bit by bit.

It's not a short process or an easy process. But there are no shortcuts. The only way you'll improve is writing, not being paralysed with worries that you're not good enough.

 

You accept that no one starts out at the top, and that it takes countless trials and tribulations before you can achieve something. Then you get back to work and keep trying.

 

Tenderiser nailed it: do not panic. First drafts are exactly that, and recognizing that yours needs a lot more work means you have insight and are on the right path.

I was talking to a colleague who has just finished his 3rd manuscript in a trilogy, and he said first drafts are always terrible, but he got better as he went along. 7 rewrites on the 1st one, 5 rewrites on the 2nd one, and 3 rewrites on the 3rd one. But he was never happy with the first drafts either, and yet, he sold all three manuscripts.

Hemingway famously rewrote A Farewell to Arms 50 times, and is alleged to have coined the phrase, "The first draft of anything is shit."

 

What people are you comparing yourself to? What works are you comparing your work to?
Answer those, make some adjustments to thinking/ego, and write some more.

 

Give yourself a couple of days to think about why you don't like it. Is it the writing style? The construction? The plot or characters? See if you can pinpoint what's bothering you. What did your lover mean by 'clean it up a bit?' Did you agree with that assessment?

 

I'll just take this home & work on it
... ...

 

This.

When I write I generally have this huge unassailable idea of what my story's going to be that I work toward. Then I finish it. Then I read it. Then I realize it is nothing like I thought it was going to be like. So I go on a bit of a hate trip and feel like it's worthless and I'm worthless and hell exists and it's at my writing desk. So I put my draft away, get over myself, and go work on something else. Then I come back to my draft. And now with a fresh mind I can go over that draft again. Now without having some unachievable Platonic Form of the story in my head to compare it to, I can go through it and realize that on it's own, it really isn't that bad. Sure, it may not be the best, but that's what editing is for. You're not a joke. If you've already finished a, (or multiple drafts) that is an achievement. And it's an achievement that few people get to revel in. Go out, grab a beer with friends and lovers (or if you don't do that, something else you enjoy) and celebrate it. You probably did better than you think you did.

 

I feel like this now. I had my husband review mine a year ago. It took me till a few months ago to pick back up on it. I had him read it again last night and still feel the same, difference this time I'm opening myself up to learning, and continuing forward.

 

You're not going to get the novel that you wish for if you don't write it. Sounds obvious, but that genuinely is the bottom line, no two ways about it. For some, that's going to take longer than others. How long it takes comes down to a mixture of time, grit, resilience, experience, and - dare I say it - natural talent.

Time:- Our novels don't become masterpieces overnight. More likely we see a transition from 'bad writing' to 'good writing' as we continue to hone our scenes and improve our storytelling. As others have said, the first draft is vomiting the relevant stuff onto the page, and then we improve it later. Some sections of my novel have had several reworking so, and each iteration I can sense is a big improvement on the last.
Grit:- Self-motivation is mandatory. All of the help and advice that we can offer here is irrelevant if you won't motivate yourself to keep chipping away. But we can't write your novel for you. We can't hold your hand every step of the way. We can't help you if you won't help yourself along the way too.
Resilience:- Every writer experiences moments of self-doubt, some more critical than others. However, I know that all I can do is press on. It would be such a shame to just throw in the towel and have nothing to show for the countless hours that I've poured into my novel.
Experience:- Just as in becoming an expert in any field, you have to learn from your mistakes. Analyse your own work. Learn from it. If you keep repeating the same mistakes, then you'll never improve. I know in my own adventures, I've made plenty of blunders that hopefully I won't make again. Now, following on from my previous point, parts of my novel have had lots of reworking and editing - I've had to go from A to B to C to D to E. In my next novel, perhaps I will have learnt enough to be able to go straight from A to E, or maybe start at E. But I can't expect to be starting from E for a very, very long time because I haven't built up that wealth of experience. There's no way around this unless you have...
Natural Talent:- These people seem to land at E every time they put pen to paper. This may not be a popular opinion, and some might find downright discouraging, but there you go. Less productive is to lament the apparent easy success of others and concentrate on bettering ourselves. One thing is true: most books on shelves are there because the authors displayed those first four traits, naturally gifted or not.

We can offer all the platitudes you like, but at the end of the day it comes down to you. So here's my question to you now:-

What are you going to do?

 

Goodness, I've had the same thoughts on my work as well. I love to write; although, I never thought of sharing any of my work until recently. Now, I think fear has taken over to make me second guess myself on publishing. I've finished a couple small books and started on a novel. About 10,000 words in I thought to myself, this is horrible and I have had a block since then. Reading this post is really inspiring. It's great to know that others feel the same way and overcome those hurdles!

 

I have felt the same way. They say read works in the genre your writing. But when I do I wanna quit writing. The people of this forum some of them put my writing to shame. Don't quit on something you love. Even if it ends up 200 pages of crap, its your crap! Most people don't even try, give yourself some credit.

 

@deadrats
I highly recommend posting an excerpt in the workshop for critique. I’ve done it a few times and it has been very helpful, but the most recent time (yesterday) was a really wonderful learning experience. I realised I had not succeeded in building tension in one particular scene, but wasn’t sure how to improve it. I posted the passage, and got loads of feedback from members here. It can be hard to hear critical feedback, but it’s easier when it’s something you already know needs to be improved. I literally made a checklist of all the suggestions which had been made, and referred to it while rewriting the passage. I felt much happier with the reworked version, and got great feedback which confirmed to me that I had improved it and achieved the tone I was aiming for. I also feel that I will be able to use these techniques to improve my writing of such scenes in the future.

It feels daunting to post your work online for critique, and even more daunting to take that critique and use it to rework your writing. But as long as you approach it knowing that people give feedback here because they want to help others improve their writing, it can only be a positive experience.

Writing isn’t black and white. You don’t get it right or wrong. It’s a subjective opinion whether what you have written is good or bad, improving or stagnating, or even deteriorating. So it’s hard to improve your writing in a vacuum, as you are the most subjective of all when analysing your own work. So you need outside opinions and critique to improve as a writer.

Here’s a link to the thread I posted yesterday. Hopefully you can see how beneficial it was, and hopefully it encourages you to do the same.

https://www.writingforums.org/threads/opinions-on-tension-building-passage.153761/

 

I like the assonance of the first couplet of this poem. And the incomplete second couplet gives an air of "life goes on without us anyway".

 

It sounds like perhaps you had unrealistic expectations of what writing a novel is like, and you're a little disillusioned now that you know. Your first draft is rough - it's a diamond in the rough. You need to believe in it, and chip at it and dig it out of that damn horrible cave and then polish it and cut it and set it. You probably do have a good story - and you probably do not YET have the skill to write it. If this was one of your first ever attempts at a novel, then you can't possibly have the skill yet. But why be discouraged by that? It's like being sad that you can't play in Wimbledon yet after practicing for a week. Yeah it won't happen yet. Yet being the important point here. It doesn't mean you won't ever get there. You're just not there yet.

But if you stop writing, then yes, you ain't ever gonna get there.

So, KEEP WRITING. It's the only way to improve. It's the only way to make your dream realised. It's okay that the first draft is shite - truth is, it's probably a good sign because it means you've improved since you started There's always a silver lining. If you're discouraged easily, then I'd encourage you not to read back. Finish your draft first, so you have something to polish.

Your partner is right - just clean it up a little. Every draft needs to be edited. It's not reasonable to assume the work is done just because you finished writing. Getting it all down is just the beginning. It's fine - it's normal - that your writing needs editing. It is not a reflection of your skill as a writer. Perhaps it's a reflection of your skills right now - but are you so defeatist that you don't think you'll ever improve?

You will improve, if you keep writing. You will get there, if you keep writing. This is your first hurdle - worse is to come when you get critique! Brace yourself. It's a tough road, but oh so worthwhile Keep at it. You've got to! That story ain't got no one else to tell it