Just out of curiosity has anyone ever done this...before

Yeah. I did it before. It's not uncommon. I did that for my latest novel. I started it, but only cause a friend wanted to read something that i wrote, but it wasn't really going anywhere, even though the idea was good. It just wasn't enough to drive a pot. I stopped writing it. I figured I would be inspired one day and finish it. Then I came up with idea that had the same problem which stopped me from writing it until I realized that it would drive the plot further in my novel-in-hiatus. So I merged them and ended up with 90k dark young adult fantasy.

So yeah, it'll probably work. It's not wrong and it's been done many times before.

I didn't quite combine things directly, but I have a really old novel and just about the only one I consider permanently trunked that had a lot of things that I realized would work well in the last one I wrote, particularly in regards to the interactions between the two main characters. Their personalities are different, but a lot of the actual things that happen are similar.

I basically just saw certain pieces that logically fit and said, "huh, I like this," and went with it. There wasn't a lot of intentional planning. The main thing was just making sure I had the current characters in mind and that when something got moved it was taking them into account.

You reuse text all the time. Now, I haven't written a lot of fiction - yet - but even in non-fiction you reuse stuff all the time. You'd be surprised how many current articles are left-overs from years ago. You just update them, combine them with others that enhance the original, and off you go.

I can imagine it's the same with fiction. As long as you update already written text that's not been published before (or you'll be Raymond Feist) i think it's done lots of time.

it's called cannibalizing and it's done all the time lol!!
I will tell you that the 20,000 mark is always a tough one for me. When I can punch through that then it's goes much better...

AlishaS said:

So I am taking a break from editing and revising an MS that I just finished, I am finding it a little overwhelming as there was more wrong with it than I had anticipated so I thought I would take a break and move one.

I came up with an idea today and was like wow this could be good. It also could be good because I currently have two WIP's that I trunked awhile ago when I got stuck around the 16-18k mark... and I think I can use much of the work from both novels and combine them together to make one hopefully exceptional novel.

Just wondering if anyone has combined works together to get one novel out and if you have any tips. It would save me so much writing if I can make it work with the two pieces I already have

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I drew elements of stories I'd previously written and incorporated them into one story.

Just a note of caution: I totally wrecked a project of mine by combining two novels. I got 30k in before realising that I'd destroyed them both. (Boy, did that take some unpicking.)

I'm a cannibal. Old bones in new soup, best flavor. Why I don't toss old stuff, even if it isn't worth keeping for its own sake.

Absolutely - I recycle phases, ideas, electrons all the time - I'm doing it now with 2 trunk novels that have one good idea between them, and several characters I like.