You ever want to just give up on a novel?

I don't really want to "give up" on a novel, but I will take a break (sometimes for months) and do something else. For me, when writing becomes a chore and not fun anymore, it's time to take a break. I know many writers see it as "work" and one must plow through and finish. I see it as both work and passion, and I can't do something without the passion. I will burn out quickly.

I think it really depends on how you work and what kind of person you are. Do you have a tendency to abandon projects? If so, maybe it's not a good idea to take a break. It's probably better to suffer through it and call it done than quitting it halfway. I'm the kind of person who might take lots of breaks (I have short attention span, too) but I always see things through, so I know I can safely take a long break and still come back to the project and finish it. Clearly, it's not how everyone works.

Can you figure out why you're sick of it? Maybe subconciously you realize that there's a major problem with the MS -- huge plot holes, flat characters, poor logic, or a flabby middle-section. Or maybe you've reached a scene you feel is going to be really difficult to write.

I've put WIPs on hiatus for up to a month when I hit one of the above problems, and when I get back to it, I've found that I've figured out the solution while it's been banging around in my brain. But I can't say that would work for you.

I have givien up on some partial novels because it became apparent they were utter dogs (one being my only attmept at NaNo). but if the fault is my attention span or persistence then there is no excuse.

I love my story. I really love it, but I hit a place where I needed a break. I decided to take the summer off. It turned into a year. (I don't recommend this, I'm just telling a tale.)

I didn't look at the work at all. Then, one day, I printed out some of what I had---oh, about 180 out of 300 pages and read it. I kept saying, "This is good! I want to know what happens." And after a couple of days of thinking about the story, I was ready to work again. It's been going along at a steady clip since then. BUT I found myself making major changes: I switched POV (from first to third person limited) and upped the ante considerably for my main character, which required significant story changes. The work is better for all that.

I think what happened to me was that making (necessary, major) changes became less painful than letting the work languish and die. And writing became fun again, too.

I hope you find the right path with this novel of yours. It's a painful process. For me, letting it lie worked out well. And yes, I know, that makes me not a "real" writer.

SusanR

I've hit a few big humps working on my WIP. Generally speaking, I'd stall when I knew that I had a problem to solve. As ling as I'm just writing the tale, I'm fine. But when there's a hole that needs resolution or threads that need tying, then I get stuck. Taking a break always helps me. The solution usually crops up when I'm doing something unrelated, like showering, walking, etc. And then I can start working again.

Tossing One

I did give up on one and tossed it--and have no regrets about it. The story was called Remember No Evil and was a psychological thriller. That part I know now, but when I was writing it, my only option available was mystery--though the story really didn't fit in with mystery. I struggled to find a fit, even looking at Harlequin at one point because the Intrigue series was closer to what I was writing though I did not have a romance.

I was also a short story writer trying to write a novel like a long short story. No matter what, I would reach a certain point, and the story would fizzle out. I wound up in endless rewrite syndrome, trying to make it come together somehow. I'd run into a snag, go off to short stories for a while, come back and try again, hit more snags, and go back to short stories. I even was going through old scenes and trying to work them into the story because I'd already invested lots of time in them and didn't want to waste the effort. I was writing fluff to bring the page count up. I didn't go on to another project because I couldn't come up with any other ideas for novels at the time. I finally found a reference in a book that identified why I was having so many problems--short story and novel are very different forms. I did try going back to the story from scratch.

About then, I met my co-writer, and we both set aside aside our existing projects to work on a new one together. I realized at that point if I really wanted to finish a novel I was going to have to set aside Remember No Evil. Set aside was all I committed to, with a promise to myself that if I wanted to return to it, I would. After we finished Audacious Run, Remember No Evil was officially tossed. It carried far, far too much baggage from my struggles with it for me to ever really be able to enjoy working on it again. Plus, I learned something later--I was no longer the same person who started it.

If it really is frustrating you, don't force yourself to keep plugging at it at the expense of hating it. If you need to set it aside, do so. You can always come back to it later. And if it needs to be tossed, be willing to consider that option, too--if it helps you get a book done. I wish I had been willing to toss Remember No Evil, because it truly became a project that I hated in the end.

If you must, take a day or two off. I would plow through.

But, like you, I love to write, so I just do it.

I do understand about taking too much time away with those of us that are constantly improving our skills/prose.

That's what re-writes are for.

Tossing a WIP

Last spring I started a novel, got 60 pages in, got stuck. Then let it sit for three months while I vacationed abroad. When I came home, things started flowing. Now I'm on the third draft. It's 90,000 words and, I think, a good read. So, for me, walking away from the WIP helped.

Also, I think it helps to step back, think about why you wanted to write the story in the first place. Is the theme something meaningful to you. Do you love your characters? Have you made their troubles tough enough? Maybe the POV's wrong.

You can see from the postings that most everyone encounters this problem of getting stuck in the middle.

Most seasoned writers, I think, would advise you to get your butt in the chair and write something, anything, every day. Soon the fog will clear. But, as I said earlier, walking away from the WIP helped me.

Good luck.

I'd take a break, if I were you.

I know that if a manuscript is causing me trouble, taking a break helps me to step away from it and figure out what's wrong so I can be prepared to make it right when I go back to work. Only throw it out if you are convinced it's no good, and then put it into a file where you can get to it at a later time. Who's to say you won't figure out how to tell the story a few weeks, months, or even years, down the road?

So yeah, take a break, step away from it. That way you can take a look at the whole picture and figure out if it's still worth your time.


I hope this helps. Good luck to you!

I try to just write through it all. But I have a tendency to abandon my writing and I'm trying to be more serious since I decided this is what I want to do for a living.

This quote from Peter de Vries was in the most recent issue of WD:

"I write when I'm inspired and see to it that I'm inspired at nine o'clock every morning."

I typed it out in big letters and put it on my wall. It's good advice, I think.

Yea, I wouldn't be afraid of taking a break. I was forced to break from my WIP for a while due to life. But when I came back to it like 2 years later, it wasn't that hard to pick up where I left off. (Easier than I thought it would be anyway).

I don't think you should be working on something if you think it's a waste of your time. If you come back and it's not working for you then maybe I'd say drop it. But definitely give it at least one more shot.

There are times when a writer might want or need to take a break and he or she can't. If you can, do so. A little distance from the work always seems to provide a fresher perspective. Butt in chair is a necessary evil at times but I don't see anything wrong with taking a little time off from a work.

I just got off the phone with a friend who is a multi published novelist and he was relating his many deadline-induced anxieties to me. Both of us agreed that it's more fun to write without a deadline, or even without a contract because you're less worried about all the other people who are looking over your shoulder. (Not to take away from the contract thing, which certainly has its own benefits -- I'd give my right arm to have one along about now.) It's nice to be able to take your time, get some distance, and ponder the work at your leisure. And I think most writers write better as a result of these breaks.

So if you can take a break, I think you should do so. If you find success in your writing career there will come a day when you need to take a break and can't. When that happens you'll look back wistfully at this post and these days and long for the freedom to step away for a bit.

Beth

I worked on a book for about five years before I decided I had to take a break, and I figured that taking a break would be a good idea to get me back in tune with the project.

The break allowed me to work on other projects and get my brain working again in a creative but non-frustrating way. But while doing this, I came to the realization that the project I was breaking from was unsalvagable. So, I abandoned it with the intention to cannibalize anything that might be useful for other projects.

On the other hand, I started a project somewhere around 1993 and knew pretty much right from the start that I wasn't ready for it, so I decided then to take a break, too. That break lasted until November of 2005 when I finally decided to come back to the material. And hot damn if I don't feel like what I have now is probably going to be my best work to date and might--dare I say it--might be the first work I'll actually be confident enough to try getting published.

So, I think the question of breaking or abandoning also has a lot to do with the material itself. I don't feel guilty or bad that I abandoned the one project after breaking from it--I'm glad the break showed me what it did, because I would have hated to waste my time trying to plow through it. It was a lot like a release, actually; after making the decision not to pursue it anymore I felt much less burdened and being creative came more easily.

Break

I think it depends on what you mean by "taking a break." A short break can be a good thing, but in my experience, long breaks seldom work out. Though you should never say never.

I'd say take a week or two off, no longer, then read through the novel from page one.

Not finishing is dangerous. It can quickly become a habit. It's always easier to move on to the next project than to finish one you've already started.

Maddwriter said:

Anyway, anyone ever feel this way?

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Oh yes, definitely. Right now, even. It's a constant battle for me, since my creative process is slower than molasses in January likely due in no small part to my own brain's tendency to over criticize and internally revise to the point I just feel like giving up.

My first novel, which I am now beginning final revisions work on having finished the first draft in 2004, took 8 years to take from the first glimpses of an idea to putting down the words "the end" on a 190,000 word fantasy MS just in time for my 31st birthday. In that time, I constantly fought off self doubt and urges to just put it down and forget about it. At one point, I even gave myself permission to take a two year long break to help me deal with serious psychological issues that were preventing me from not just writing but functioning in everyday life. But I got through it and finished the novel anyway, and was proud of myself just for getting through it. It may have taken forever, and publishers likely won't be all that happy about my writing pace (which is improving mind you), but I'm not writing for them - I'm writing for me.

In short, I voted for taking a break. A short one though - two years like the one I took means I have to totally rewrite major sections of my novel

I'm not seasoned in this area as I'm just now writing my first novel - but I do find that when I need a break from my other writing (newspaper articles and short stories) I just walk away for a little bit and it always helps. I haven't dedicated enough "nonstop" attention to my novel to know what you may be going through. In fact, the last time I wrote anything on it was three days ago. I usually just work on the novel two or three times a week.

I've mentioned this before, but I took a 10 year break from one of my novels. I had 4 chapters written and just didn't like anything about it.

I came back to it and sat down, reread it and ended up scrapping everything except the opening chapter and the basic kernel of the idea it had and ended up writing a 200,000 page novel in about a year.

So I say, go on to something else and leave that one stew for a while.

Sure, take a break, but does it have to be a break away from writing or just from that project? I usually have two novels as WIP plus another in second draft or editing, and switching from one to the other feeds my need to be writing and gives me a break from whichever project is giving me problems. By 'clearing' my mind of the one with problems as I working on a different story, I find that somehow (perhaps because my subconscious is working on the problem), when I come back to that particular story the solution is easy and I can forge ahead.

Shai said:

On the other hand, I started a project somewhere around 1993 and knew pretty much right from the start that I wasn't ready for it, so I decided then to take a break, too.

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Wow, reading this totally unlocked this tidbit hidden in my memory. I started writing something when I was like 16 and stopped writing it because my character started at 16 but got older and older and I realized that as a 16 year old I was finding it impossible to write about a much older character. So I put aside and intended to come back to it when I was older. Whatever happened to it I wonder... It's probably on one of those discs I have for some very old version of WordPerfect that I can't open now...

Well now I'm going to have to go looking. (I wonder if it's any good? <g>)