The Ice Age - Margaret Drabble (1977 - yes, I know, I goofed by saying that Clancy's book was the oldest on the list) The Hunt for Red October - Tom Clancy (1984) Mexico - James A. Michener (1991) Ahab's Wife - Sena Jeter Naslund (1999) Who Is Killing the Great Writers of America? - Robert Kaplow (2007) No, I actually read very little of either.
I have been writing my main project over 8 times, attempting to start off the story better than before but I think I keep doing it too much. Today, I had to make a big decision. I had to remove my main character as the central focus of the plot and turn him into a secondary character (because writing him in as the MC just didn't work out after several revisions. He is replaced by a secondary character which I switched roles to MC). This greatly affected my entire outline and gameplan of my project. If I ever do this again, Will I ever get it done eventually or will I be stuck, rewinding my story because I feel I'm not doing it right. Has anyone experienced this before?
Sometimes it takes a while to get a feel for your story, so it isn't surprising. While I don't outline myself, others do find it helps and you may want to try that method. It won't mean things never change as you actually write, but it might help you cut back on the number of 'false starts'.
I'm going through this right now. I've wrote my story approx 3 - 4 I'm either on re-write number 4 or 5 I'm not sure. I think a draft got lost in the shuffle of moving things over to a new computer. I wrote the first draft third person pov twice and 1st person either once or twice. I'm going back to third person. From experience it's exasperating. But for my own personal project I'm finding my main flaw to be I'm not sure who I want to tell the story and what his goal is and that's my big hang up. Once I settle down to figuring this out it should be smooth sailing. I've been toying with scenes writing small ones from different viewpoints. My only concern is that you've switched you mc - I've done this before on another project where I've changed the story so many times and swapped up the mc that yes the story doesn't seem to have an end point ( it's been decades and I've yet to put an end to that project ) because each draft is like the first draft of a whole nother book - with different goals and themes.
If only I could share this with you, my project began as a simple story with a simple plot. Over time, I gained new ideas and the complexity just grew. Because of that, I have to make several revisions to perfect it. It's a tough battle for perfection but eventually it will get done. Luckily, I completed a 46 page short a while ago which is considered a big achievement for my writing. Now I got to get my damn big book finished.
Oh I know this all too well. To me it is paralysing, I have about half a dozen unfinished stories just sitting there...it's maddening, but at least My mind manages to conjure up new ideas, which is a great perk. I think I could force myself to finish something, but part of me doesn't want to force it because that won't make it better imho.
Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm better off selling ideas than writing, but I don't want it to be that way.
Don't try and perfect things too much just write. My first drafts never makes much sense. I'm not sure if anyone's first drafts make that much sense - from what I've seen on other sites they're full of errors, flubs in logic ect - but as long as the bones are there you've got something to work with. 46 pages is an excellent start - I usually have for myself a four page hurdle ( for short stories ) 30 pages for novels - if I can get past that I can finish the story.
Wouldn't it automatically be better than an unfinished piece of a story? Writing isn't all inspiration and ideas - it's also work.
My concern is that you _start_ it over and over. Do you ever finish it - that is, do you ever get to the end? It seems normal to rewrite a book more than once, but if you're only getting a few pages in then it seems to me that you'd be better off forcing yourself to keep going, and going back to reconsider the beginning later.
Usually when I'm on the 5th chapter, I'm at the point where I feel I need to re-write it. Luckily, when I re-write it, I'm putting in new ways of storytelling instead of going back and fourth using the same themes and tropes.
These are my thoughts exactly. Are you simply re-writing small and large parts? That's normal, and necessary. Or are you scrapping everything and starting over? That sounds more concerning... if that's really the case, why? Is the story not working at all?
Well, I'm re-writing the story from scratch in some aspect. (It's a scifi story so I already have a whole universe built around it). Sometimes it gets too inconsistent. So let's see one paragraph in a chapter has an event that's a bit too cliche. I change that, but the changes contradict the events previously written, so I have to change that as well and it just falls apart eventually. Then, I have to start over from Chapter 1. This is why I have been working on a detailed outline to make sure the plot is good enough to be written without needing to start over.
Eventually, there's got the be the point where you say, "I can fix this later. I need to get it done." One of the projects that I had worked and re-worked time and time again was starting to feel boring to me. I was on the eighth or ninth re-write (having completely scrapped the first few chapters over and over again) and I was thinking to myself, "How many times am I going to have to write this scene?" I got bored with it and stopped working on it for the longest time. When I tried to pick it back up again, though, the problem hadn't gone away. What I ended up doing (though, I have an outline for my stories, so it was incredibly simple for me) was to skip past the scenes I'd already written eight times a piece, and worked on later scenes. You can correct what you've already written. You can't correct what you haven't already written. Grit your teeth, write a big pile of dung (if that's how you view it), and then polish and edit and change. Otherwise, you're going to be stuck in the same loop when you eventually do settle on the first five/six chapters and move on to the next few. You're going to be tempted to do the same things with those that you're doing now with the first few. Trust me.
I had a change of heart on my MCs a couple of times, but never changed the story radically 8 times. I hope you settle on a direction and write your story soon
Uberwatch, I know what you mean with "editing hell". I believe this happens to all writers. I often get stuck, too. The advice I can give you here is: if one scene is bugging you, then change that, don't go off and change everything else. If it's difficult to fix, leave a blank for a moment and think about it deeply. There will always be a solution and you may just need more time to come up with one. From what you've written, you seem to want to have an instant fix, which breaks something else. I've had that happen too, but most times, I re-work the fix, instead of trying to re-work the whole story.
When you're on the steep leading edge of the learning curve, you're pretty likely to want to start over several times. That's because you're improving so quickly that much of what you wrote "way, way back when" (i.e. a few weeks ago) looks like utter crap compared to what you are currently writing. I don't see much harm in this. Yes, you face the danger of getting frustrated, but you'll have to deal with that anyway. Persevere regardless of whether you yield to the temptation to restart. You'll get plenty of practice, and your learning curve will level off somewhat by the time you finish revising your drafts.
I have 8 stories, each one unique and I keep swapping onto each one adding more additions as ideas pop up from time to time. I have basic plots for each one but I love world creating which is what I've been doing all this time. I pretty much have my own dream settings ready to be played with: Fantasy, sci-fi, horror, thriller and fantasy/sci-fi settings, but as soon as I make a new change, I suddenly get a new idea for another one of my stories and proceed to continue with that until I have another idea for my other stories. I'm making very small progress on each one but they are slowly growing into their own setting as I try to avoid typical settings and stories.
It's normal to work on several stories at once. The issue is whether or not you're eventually finishing at least some of them.
I agree with this. For example, I've just sent off a book to agents, and I have another one in third-draft stage. Also, I'm on chapter four of a sequel and planning a fantasy book for NaNoWriMo. It is a lot of books to be working on, but I also read a lot of books at the same time, so that's just me. But I can, and do, finish them. As long as you are too, however slowly, then there's no problem.
I can handle some short stuff as I'm working on the longer ones, but I finish each short before starting the next. Some can do many things at the same time, others can't, but as already mentioned, the important thing is that you're actually finishing something.
It is good to hear that I am not the only one, I get all these ideas popping up from time to time and also there are so many influences. I doubt I would ever publish any of my books, I just do it for fun really.
I have two novels and a novella on the back burner. I'm working on some related short stories and novelettes right now, and getting those gradually finished. I have a novelette and two short stories submitted to magazines now, and I'm hard at work on another novelette while I wait. Like everyone else says, you can work on a lot of projects at once, so long as they eventually get finished. You'd be surprised at the number of writers (or people who call themselves writers) who happily work away for years on various things and never finish any of them. I guess, for them, finishing, submitting, and publishing isn't the point. They just want to live in their fantasy worlds forever, and that's perfectly fine, too.
I work on multiple writings as well, albeit not always on paper. I do a lot of world building on my own time and sometimes I randomly get inspiration for something new and start slowly developing a new story. Personally, I rather just work on one and commit all my energy to it when I'm actually writing however.
