I think we get pulled away from some things for good reasons. I know that's the case with me. I've abandoned plenty of stories that just weren't that good. But I've also finished stories that were that good and sold. I believe we have to write the bad stories to write the good ones. And if a good story is calling you, why would you not listen? I get it that some people just jump from project to project and never finish things. I think we need a little of that. And it's okay because the right one is going to come along. I believe I will finish my current novel. I like writing it. It's kind of my friend. But I've been called away from it and probably wrote about a dozen short stories along side it. My short stories (some of them) are starting to sell so I think it was good to follow the stories that I felt were calling me. And the novel is still there, still my friend. But I've got a few things in the works. There's always going to be something to work on and I believe we write the right things at the right times.
My muse is a fickle bitch, and when I'm slogging through my first draft I probably have at least new ideas hit me that seem like a much better idea than the story I'm currently working on. I am not someone who does well working on multiple stories at the same time, so if I were to listen to her siren song (so seductive, she is!) I'd never finish anything. I don't really write the other ideas down though - I figure the good ones will stick and the bad ones will float away on the wind.
Sometimes when I write the words just flow. I can get lost in my story and just keep writing away. And I've noticed the easier it feels to write something, the better it usually is. I'm struggling a bit because my novel doesn't seem as easy to write anymore. And what I thought was pretty solid is really pretty stupid. I spent all day yesterday editing some of what I have. I started at the beginning and only made it through about 25 pages. And it took all say. I had long sentences and paragraphs that went nowhere and needed to be cut. There was a lot of rewriting. Still, I feel like my structure is off, like I'm taking too many sideways steps instead of forward. The focus isn't tight. I've put a lot into this, and I hate the idea of scrapping everything, but it almost feels like it would be better to just start over. I want to write some version of this story. I'm just not sure what I have down is ever going to look like what I want. Getting this to where I want, which is on a bookshelf, seems so difficult when I try to work and rework this material. And I don't think it should be this hard. Writing doesn't usually feel this hard. Should it be this hard? I know it's popular to think a first draft should be crap, but not every story gets published no matter how many drafts it goes through. I'm just wondering if I can do better restarting at page one than trying fix a bad novel starting at page one. Have you ever restarted a story? Was it worth it? This feels like a big decision, and I'm really not sure what to do at this point. Any advice or experiences you want to share are welcome.
I have been through hell and back with my last novel. At one point i wanted to throw it away, start something new. But each time, I soldiered through it and very glad I did! Don't forget, Stephen King threw his book 'Carrie' away. His wife picked it out of the bin and said to continue. And that became his first novel accepted by agents. Rgds
OK, Deadrats, I think this is a very important question. Certainly it is an issue I also struggle with. Probably, what we both want to hear are answers from well published novelists. My first question to you is,how long have you been working on this novel? Based on my own experience on almost all my longer fiction endeavors, at some point, the writer is going to develop fatigue. Suddenly, they're really sick of the material. That translates into all sorts of feelings, including doubting the current quality of the work and even the potential best quality of the work. That's why (and again, I'd really love to hear from successful novelists) I believe a good way to prevent this fatigue is to try to do passes of the novel, relatively short spurts where you focus on certain elements. A 3 month first draft, then break, a one month second draft, break, etc, etc. Anything to prevent that fatigue.
Just me, maybe, and may have something to do with my age, but if I had a project I was even considering scrapping, I'd scrap it right away and write something else. Life is too short to waste any of it plodding away at something even you don't think is any good.
I feel ya, I have been making progress like sludge. I have my doubts in my own WIP and even in it's performance in the market when I toss it into the arena. But I push myself to keep writing it because you don't just give up on something you have busted your ass on. Sure their are days when I just hate the whole thing and think that it seems stupid and pointless, but I manage to make it past those thoughts and feelings and keep the plot moving. So yeah take breaks when your not feeling the story, but don't just give up on it. And if you really can't stand writing it anymore, keep it as a reminder of how far you can get a story that you thought was worth writing at the time, and may one day find the will and the inspiration to finish it. Or just keep it as a learning tool of what you have explored and tried your hand at.
Have you completed a novel before, or would this be your first one? I think it'll be important to compare "ease of writing" to another work of a similar length, if that makes sense. I think a lot of the things that make novels different from short stories (pacing, multiple arcs, more complicated structures, etc.) are things that do tend to make you feel bogged down and lost. Now the challenge is to figure out if you actually are bogged down and lost, or whether you just feel that way. Have you tried writing an outline of what you've got so far? If you're planning to look for an agent/publisher, you'll need to do one anyway, and I think writing them can be a really useful way to see the structure of your story more clearly. If you hit too many patches where you realize you have nothing to add to the summary for that chapter, then you're probably looking at a pacing/structure issue. In terms of personal experience? I run into bogs like this whenever I try writing something in a new genre, something that will challenge me. I can write romances fairly easily because I know that structure pretty well, but when I try to write something else, I definitely bog down. I tend to leave the "hard" project, go write a romance to get my momentum back, and then return to the hard project to try again. This gives me fresh eyes, too, and I often find that things aren't as bleak as they seemed when I took the break... although sometimes I find they're quite bleak indeed and I need to make a substantial rewrite. Writing sure is fun, huh?
It's not the book I'm scrapping all together. I still want to write this novel. I just don't really like the way I've written these 100-plus pages so far. That's what I mean by starting on page one. Same book. Better writing.
I can't really say I feel sick of my material, but I am completely questioning the quality of what's on the page. I don't know if that means I am sick of the material or not. I'm also not sure exactly how long I've been working on this novel. I am primarily a short story writer and have probably written a half dozen short stories along side this novel. I'm wondering if I restart this project, if your timeline might help. I feel like I could finish a draft in three months if I scrap what I have and start again. If I work with what I have, the whole process is probably going to take much longer. But then who is to say I can actually do any better if I try again. It's kind of a hard call, but I'm feeling a little stuck in terms of how this mess will ever be something publishable. Again, I am not talking about switching stories. I am talking about rewriting this story (of course allowing it to evolve and change, but still the same story pretty much).
V.E. Schwab recently posted on Twitter that she was unhappy with an entire draft of a novel and tossed the draft in favor of a complete rewrite, and she has a bunch of novels. I guess this is something that can always happen.
Thanks. I'm not at the point of giving up on the story, but I am thinking of giving up on the way I've written it so far. And I've just returned to this after a long break. Maybe I needed that time to see what a sh!tty job I've done.
I have completed a novel before, though, I didn't try to do too much with it. But that one was easier to write, and I think the writing was probably better. It's not a story problem. It's a prose problem. And it's not that I don't want to write this novel, it's just that after a full day of editing and hating almost every word, I'm just not sure how much I can really work with what I have. I would like to believe I can do better. I don't work with outlines and have no desire to do so. I've been writing long enough to know somethings do and don't work for me. If I complete an outline, it sort of wipes out all my desires to actually write it. This is really a matter of completely rewriting vs. editing. I'm not worried about finishing this novel. I really don't have a problem finishing things all that often. I thought what I had written was better than it is. I'm probably at the halfway mark. I'm sure I could just finish it if that's all I wanted to do, finish it for the sake of finishing it. But I want more from this. I'm willing to work hard, but this isn't an easy decision. I know you've written several books. Did you ever do a complete rewrite of any of your novels? I'm already pretty deep in so I feel like if I am going to start over, it would be better to do it now vs. later.
That's exactly where I am. But it's a hard call. Still, the fact that I'm even thinking about it probably means it's what's needed.
I've never rewritten an entire novel, but I've quit after, say, fifteen or twenty thousand words and started over. But it was always structural, with me. I'm not sure I understand the point of starting over if there's a problem with the prose - wouldn't the quality of prose be roughly the same whether you started over or not? What is it you think you're going to fix? (And in terms of outlines - never say never. I don't like them either, but I think for some stories they're near-necessities, at least in some form. You've written mostly short stories and of course they don't need outlines, but novels are different. That said... I didn't suggest an outline of what you've yet to write, a suggested one of what you've written already. A synopsis, really. But if it's the prose that's bothering you, I agree there's no point.)
I apologize if I am getting too philosophical. Is restarting a story from scratch that different from switching to a different story? Obviously in terms of plot, YES, it's very different, but in terms of text? I'm assuming we're not talking about editing here. In that case, you're just making a new text about the same story. Is the new text necessarily better or just different? Personally, I'd like to believe the latter because if I believed the former id feel I could never move on to further drafts. There would always be a better version I'd want to write. Now obviously if we're talking about changing characters and plot points then that's a really hard call.
Thanks for the responses. I want to keep the general idea of my novel, but I also would be completely open to changing things as I write it. I just feel like the prose suck. Seriously, I spent all day rewriting sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph and it just sucks to work like that and I'm not sure how much it's actually making things better. There were pages I cut and rewrote as well. Maybe it won't be any better if I restart this novel, but I feel like I really can't to much with what I have now. This just sucks. I hate it when I try really hard and still don't get it right.
lol the process you are going through is the only one I know (though I finish the draft before I edit)
You know what most readers don't really care about? Prose. Unless it's so bad that it's hard to understand. You know what they care the most about? Characters and story. Read some best-selling novels, and you'll soon see how bad your prose can be and still be successful, if you have characters that readers can relate to in a good story. The prose needs to portray those characters in that story, and doesn't need to be any better than that (though it's always nice if it's well-written, too). Otherwise, yes, I usually think my stories are crap about half-way through. Usually it's because I've done something wrong in the setup and need to fix it, or gone down a dead-end in the plot and need to go back a few steps and follow a different path.
I'm more of a cut my losses kind of writer - if I'm not happy or can't figure out where to go with a novel/novella after the first 3-4 chapters I usually give up on it and start something new. I have one book I'd really like to get back to if I can ever figure out how to make the logistics work (it's got a mystery element and I'm terrible at the details of a whodunnit) because I feel like everything else would go pretty easily. But I don't think I'd have to start over, I think I could pick up where I left off. I guess if I really navel gaze about it, I don't re-write my beginnings because for me a bad beginning rarely seems to be what trips me up. The beginning of a novel/novella is usually the most painless part of writing for me, actually. Everything is shiny and new, I love my characters and setting, my self-doubt's alarm clock hasn't gone off yet...total honeymoon phase. It's that 5th chapter slump where I start screaming I HAVE LOST CONTROL OF THIS STORY AND ALSO I SUCK AND SHOULD NEVER WRITE ANYTHING EVER AGAIN. Writing a book is like running a 5K for me; the first mile is a cakewalk, and soon into the 2nd mile I'm pretty sure I'm going to die; but by the time I start that 3rd mile I'm like "well I've got more behind me than in front of me, I guess I better finish this damn thing so I can go out for pancakes with Mr. Kelly."
I did that for years, which is why I've got about thirty half-finished novels on my laptop and only about eight completed ones. Now, when I start a new book, I normally end up spending half the time getting the opening right, after which the rest mostly writes itself.
That's funny. I've definitely noticed a hump often when I get to 30-50 % into a first draft. For me that seems to be the hardest part of the story.
The thing is, you're not a lazy writer. You write constantly. And this is your first attempt at a novel. So I would advise you to put it away for a while and write other things. Give yourself another few months without looking at it or worrying about it at all. You are a productive writer, so just keep doing what you already do. At the end of a few untouched months, go back to it. See what you've got. By that time, the memory of having written it will have worn off. You will be able to look at it dispassionately. If you still think it's crap, then ditch it, or put it away again. However, I suspect what you'll finally see is what has been going wrong. You'll also see how to fix it. I wouldn't stress over the sentences and paragraphs and word choices at this stage. A novel needs not only a good foundation story, but it needs careful structure and control over all the structural elements. Make sure these are all in place. I take it from what you've said that your novel's first draft isn't finished yet. So look at it from that point. Where is it going? See what you can do to get it there. You say you're dissatisfied with the way the story is at the moment, but until you see exactly what you need to do to sort the problem, then you're still too close to it. Put it away. You said you have already put it away. Well, put it away for longer. You need to get to the point where you can see what's wrong and how to fix it. If you're not at that point yet, put it away again. Put it away. You need perspective, and you're not going to get it by tinkering—which is what you're doing right now. Tinkering is what you do when you don't know what needs to be done, but feel you ought to be making changes to something. The 'rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic' is a very apt way to look at this activity. You need to figure out a way to keep the ship afloat. Forget the chairs for now. Once the ship is happily steaming towards her destination again, THEN start playing with a perfect arrangement of chairs. ............. In the meantime, can I recommend another activity? Read as many articles/books about writing novels as you can. It's a new medium for you, and perhaps something somebody says about the process will trigger an idea. Even if many of these novelists are writing novels unlike yours, or writing novels you don't even like, sometimes a tidbit of advice or a little anecdote can spring open a box you didn't even know was there. I love it when one of their sentences or ideas or working methods hits home. I didn't read anything like this while I was doing my first draft, because I didn't ever get stuck. I loved writing my novel, and loved all phases of it. However, reading these how-to articles really helped during the HEAVY editing I had to do afterwards, and certainly sparked lots of ideas from perspectives I didn't have myself.
That approach CAN be a problem if you never think anything you write is any good. This will be the dead end of your writer's endeavour—and I can't think of a bigger waste of your lifetime than that. You get fed up/bored/discouraged. You quit. You start again with something new. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. That's not a great habit to get into, is it? Of course it's okay to ditch something that truly isn't working. But if nothing you ever write gets finished, you have a problem. And the problem isn't that you're not achieving perfection first time. The problem is an unwillingness to stick to a project till it is 'perfect,' in the sense that you're happy with it. I'm a big believer in the middle ground. If you're frustrated, put the project away for a while. Come back to it later on. Identify the problem. And then fix it. You cannot beat the sense of empowerment you get when you solve problems. Nothing is so bad that I can't fix it. Hey.
