A Piece of Writing that just Doesn't Work?

PoppysInARow · Jun 29, 2009

I'm sorry if this question has been asked before, but it's been bugging me for a while.

Have any of you ever written something that you really liked, but it just didn't work? I've been working on my series for a while, but I've realized that I'm going to have to rewrite the first three books because they just don't fit like I want them to. I've had thoughts of simply abandoning it, but I've been working on it for two years, and I'm in love with it so much I couldn't bear it.

Have you guys ever had that problem? Where you have a piece of work that just doesn't want to fit together?

Mr Flibble · Jun 29, 2009

All

the

time

Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite till it does work. Or start something new with your new knowledge.

Vincent · Jun 29, 2009

Yerp, as often as not, though luckily it's usually just a short story.

Matera the Mad · Jun 29, 2009

Scenes and chapters die like flies. The Grim Cursor is my friend.

Smish · Jun 29, 2009

Yep. That's what revision is all about.

stormie · Jun 29, 2009

Here's a thought. Forget that it's a series. Most editors and/or agents just want to see the first book. Work on that. Query it when it's polished. Then when that gets a home, see if the editor or agent wants to see the second one. Or the outline or synopsis.

Everyone hits that wall at sometime. Put it aside and right something else, then go back to that first book. Query that one.

Wark · Jun 29, 2009

Matera the Mad said:
Scenes and chapters die like flies. The Grim Cursor is my friend.

Truer words were, well, really, probably there were truer words spoken, but still.

My first two books are the same book I'm writing on now. The one with its guts all over the floor and I'm deciding which entrails to tape together before shoving them back into the bloated carcass that is my great tome/turd.

sunandshadow · Jun 29, 2009

I have several shorter story ideas that I'd like to set in the same world because they all involve a 3-gendered race, but since the ideas were thought of separately the details of their settings don't mesh - for example one has superheros, the rest don't.

Danthia · Jun 30, 2009

All the time. It helps if you don't focus so much on the words, but the story. Your goal is to write the best story you can, and if that means rewriting, you rewrite. Your story is still there, and it's getting better, you just changed some words. Like re-painting a room a new color

Nothing says you can keep a can of that old color in the garage, so just copy the old pages/chapters/scenes you like into another file. One day you might find a way to use them. If not, you still have them to enjoy.

scarletpeaches · Jun 30, 2009

Yep. Entire chapters sometimes. I think it's golden on the first draft and realise it's a shiny, shiny turd when I try to edit.

NeuroFizz · Jun 30, 2009

This happens to me most often when I write a section of a story that I think is really cool, and I think of how the readers will think is it really cool as well. After the first draft, these sections usually stick way out on the initial "full-through" read when I realize those sections weren't written in service to the story. They weren't written for the reader. They were written for me--solely to make me look like a cool author. They are sliced so fast they don't even bleed, and they give me another of those look-in-the-mirror moments when I can tell the person staring back to get over himself.

Neuro's Rule #14*. If you don't want to cut a scene or passage because you think the writing is golden, and that the reader will think you're a pretty cool writer, remember that cool doesn't cook the bacon (or steam the broccoli).

*there is no real list...

Ruth2 · Jul 5, 2009

Yep, all the time here too. I learned a while back to keep a dump file. Every scene, paragraph and sentence that I end up cutting goes in there. By the time I'm finished with a manuscript the dump file is at least three times larger than the manuscript itself. That's okay. Sometimes I go back and reuse the scenes that I put there; sometimes I don't.

Revise, cut and save.

ylrebmik · Jul 5, 2009

This is my problem right now, too.

I'll get a few chapters in, and realize I don't like the direction. I outline and do it all over... ah, revisions.

backslashbaby · Jul 5, 2009

All. The. Time. Yep

For me, it just isn't good enough yet. The story is still much better in my head [or, the story deserves better words to feel the same way as in my head]. But that's what drafts are for. Frustrating, though!

Sean D. Schaffer · Jul 6, 2009

PoppysInARow said:
Snipped....

Have you guys ever had that problem? Where you have a piece of work that just doesn't want to fit together?

Yes. I'm working on one such project right now. The original manuscript had so much head-hopping, POV changes, and religious preachiness that so far I've cut out right around 10,000 to 20,000 words from the piece. What was about 93,000 words long will likely be below 80k when I get it finished.

But in the end, I think the result will be a much more satisfying read.

courtneyv · Jul 6, 2009

The first novel I wrote, fit together okay, but I didn't know about story questions and that one needed to hold taught until the climax at least, even better if it stretches to the end. My main reveal emerged a little before the climax. Plus, I relied on coincidence a bit. I actually cried and typed in fury while I wrote some of the scenes because I was so in tune with the main character's emotions. When I went back to edit, I was astounded that I WROTE that. It has good stuff, lots of conflict, suspense, engaging characters and grit, but as a whole, it doesn't work because of its structure. Once I learned more about writing novels and the construction of plot, I saw that.

Hopefully, I can rewrite it someday with an entirely different arc and maybe a better concept, keeping just the best bones, but for now I've moved on.

Heartbreaking really since I poured so much into it. Sometimes work is just too faulty to be repaired.

errantruth · Jul 6, 2009

I *heart* AW. For stuff like what everyone above's written. Thank you, everyone

Libbie · Jul 6, 2009

Yeah, that happens. Rewrite it. I am in the process of rewriting 90,000 words that I just wasn't in love with. The good news is, I'm totally in love with the new words that are replacing them.

AdamH · Jul 6, 2009

I had this story idea once that I thought would change the world. I wrote it out, believed in it...BLEEDED for it... Until editing when I realized it held together like spaghetti on a spoon. It hurt to let it go...but I learned a lot about myself.

What where we talking about again?

Oh yeah...yes, I've had stories where I had to take it all back to the beginning after I've sacrificed to much time and energy in the first place.

Alas! The curse of writing!

MDei · Jul 6, 2009

It happens all the time. I got so frustrated i want to throw the computer across the room :Hammer:

but I just have to walk away from it and come back to it later. Don't abandon it. I just go watch television or browse the internet or live life and I'll see something and make it work for my story.

I actually was halfway through a book and then realized it wasn't going anywhere and rewrote it. I've done this twice before but finished faster because of it. So yeah I know the feeling.

cooeedownunder · Jul 6, 2009

Every thing I usually like, needs to be trashed, after a bit of time goes by and my eyes adjust to the light.

Skye Jules · Jul 7, 2009

I know it's going to same lame because I was a little middle schooler, but I was really passionate about this one novel I had written back when I was eleven, and I realized it just wasn't going to work out--not because I knew I could improve it even more, but because the concept was too childish, and I had a much more mature idea that I wanted to start, an idea that I'm eventually going to re-write. It wasn't too much of an unbearable loss, as I realized I could do much, much better.

Wark · Jul 7, 2009

I'm rewriting mine, which just shrunk under 100k, because at the beginning I didn't know the main character's personality. Also I forgot what people knew at certain times, which kind of screws up everything.

Skye Jules · Jul 7, 2009

Wark said:
I'm rewriting mine, which just shrunk under 100k, because at the beginning I didn't know the main character's personality. Also I forgot what people knew at certain times, which kind of screws up everything.

The novel I started about five years ago was 180k. Somehow, I managed to shrink it to 97k. I was so proud of myself! Still working on it, of course. But I think sometime this year or next year, I'll be able to send off my first query letter. I'm hoping, in any case...

Wark · Jul 8, 2009

Skye Jules said:
The novel I started about five years ago was 180k. Somehow, I managed to shrink it to 97k. I was so proud of myself! Still working on it, of course. But I think sometime this year or next year, I'll be able to send off my first query letter. I'm hoping, in any case...

From an interview with Joss Whedon I've kept:

5. CUT WHAT YOU LOVE
Here’s one trick that I learned early on. If something isn’t working, if you have a story that you’ve built and it’s blocked and you can’t figure it out, take your favourite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It’s brutal, but sometimes inevitable. That thing may find its way back in, but cutting it is usually an enormously freeing exercise.

I got it from http://dannystack.blogspot.com/2009/01/joss-whedons-top-10-writing-tips.html but they link to the original source.

I had two hospital scenes, one a knock down drag out battle, and I had to cut both of them. Besides, grenade launchers in the maternity ward is a close the book and walk away moment.

A Piece of Writing that just Doesn't Work?

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

Cheers

Bartender, gimme a Linux Mint

Reads more than she writes.

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Mark Brockman

Impractical Fantasy Animal

Danthia

The grad students did it

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March 15th: Issue 1 release

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March 15th: Issue 1 release

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