A Question For Everyone Who Has Writen A Novel

Anitraka · Mar 2, 2006

For everyone who has writen a novel:

Does your first one seem like it could have been better but you just don't know how to make it better??

Julie Worth · Mar 2, 2006

Of course. And early novels often suffer from unfixable faults. Not without some major rewriting, anyway.

blacbird · Mar 2, 2006

All of them do. I think anything I write will always feel that way to me. And maybe also that it's a good thing.

Then again, since I can't get a want ad published in my local newspaper, what do I know?

caw.

Sharon Mock · Mar 2, 2006

For my first two attempts at a novel, I didn't even get that far: I knew how I could make them better, but it wasn't worth the effort. It would have just been washing garbage.

I do feel that way about the current WIP, and I strongly suspect I'll feel the same way about every other big project I complete.

Zonk · Mar 2, 2006

I've heard it said that no novel is ever really finished, just abandoned.

badducky · Mar 2, 2006

Zonk's got it on the nose.

This detail also contributes to why so many of us are going to have a little bout with a bottle.

That and all this darn waiting!

Branwyn · Mar 2, 2006

Julie Worth · Mar 2, 2006

badducky said:
Zonk's got it on the nose.

This detail also contributes to why so many of us are going to have a little bout with a bottle.

That and all this darn waiting!

“Yep,” she says, flicking a cigarette butt into the mud, “been waiting here for years.”

I pull the burlap sack around me, shivering. “It’s cold,” I say.

“It’ll get colder before it’s done.”

I look past her, past the barbwire to the green valley below. “They say it’s warm down there.”

“It’s positively balmy down there. Warner, Penguin, Double Day, they’re all in the valley.”

“Double Day,” I say, loving the sound of the words.

“Ballantine editors are the best.”

“Editors? I thought they were mythical?”

“Nope, they’re real enough. Beautiful people.”

I look at her again. There’s something familiar. “Don’t I know you?”

“I doubt it. But you might have seen my picture on a dust cover.”

“Oh my God! It’s you, it is you! What are you doing here!?”

She smiles ruefully. “It was my last book. Sales went in the toilet. So here I am, back in line.” She points to a woman outside the gate, dressed in a Nazi uniform. “See that one?”

“Yeah. I hear she’s tough.”

“You got that right. She was my agent once. But now I can’t get a query past her.”

“Have you tried a pseudonym?”

“Honey, I’ve tried all the tricks. I even went POD, which is a horrible death.”

“What do you mean? You attempted suicide?”

“You might say. I self published.”

The wind picks up. It’s really whistling now, and stinging cold. I pull a bottle of cheap Merlot from my sack pocket and pull the cork. “You want some?” I say, offering it to her.

“Might as well,” she says. “As long as we’re waiting.”

ChaosTitan · Mar 2, 2006

Novel Number One went into a drawer and stayed there for about a year. I recently removed it, dusted it off, and read through it. It's fixable, but not without a face lift, minor surgery, maybe a tummy tuck. I love the story too much to abandon it completely, but it will have to wait its turn. There are other novels to finish first. Better novels. As so many have said, first novels are a learning experience. Some can be saved, some cannot. But it's the experience that counts the most.

scribbler1382 · Mar 2, 2006

Not abandoned -- set free.

cwfgal · Mar 2, 2006

Julie Worth said:
“Yep,” she says, flicking a cigarette butt into the mud, “been waiting here for years.”

I pull the burlap sack around me, shivering. “It’s cold,” I say.

“It’ll get colder before it’s done.”

I look past her, past the barbwire to the green valley below. “They say it’s warm down there.”

“It’s positively balmy down there. Warner, Penguin, Double Day, they’re all in the valley.”

“Double Day,” I say, loving the sound of the words.

(the rest snipped for brevity though I hated doing it)

Loved it! Probably would have loved it even more if it wasn't my life's story.

Beth

Stew21 · Mar 2, 2006

Yes it could use work. Unfortunately I think I could work it, rework it, and again, and write for the rest of my life on it until I thought, "wow that's perfect, Trish. You wrote the perfect book and it only took you 80 years to do it!" (keep in mind at 35 and a smoker - 80 years from now isn't likely to see ME) so more likely it would be until I thought, "this is the best I could do and I died doing it."
So the *first book* is happily saved in several places and I printed it off and it is tucked away because the next couple of manuscripts seem to be pounding on my door (or head? I guess I should say?) and I am ready to move on to them. I consider it like this, I wrote it for myself. I needed to prove I could do it. I started it, I finished it. I tore it apart, revised, rewrote and edited and revised again, and now it is some semblance of "done". I will take it for what it is worth, and all of me "lessons learned" with me as I trudge onto the next and the next, and hopefully learn more as I go and improve. Maybe down the road I will get this back out and see what I can fix...until then...just moving forward.
Take it for what it is! I figure, the first time I made an omlette it wasn't so perfect or pretty either. takes practice...
Did any of that make sense or have I been caught in a tremendous ramble?

Trish

Anitraka · Mar 2, 2006

Made sense to me.

badducky · Mar 2, 2006

Oh, I love the word Penguin!

They actually rejected me the other day!

I'm trying to find a bottle of wine with a penguin on it to drink in their honor! Hopefully a dry, chilled white of some kind from New Zealand!

Someone needs to put together a list of what wine goes with which rejection.

Stew21 · Mar 2, 2006

Here you go badducky!
http://www.thelittlepenguin.com/penguin_zone/penguin_personals.html

badducky · Mar 2, 2006

Now, if ONLY IT WAS AVAILABLE IN MY LOCAL STORE!!!!!

I hate living in the dry Bible belt. They only recently allowed wine ni grocery stores, and the vast majority of them are twist-top blends. The best wine I can find is only aroud twenty dollars a bottle.

Unless of course I drive an hour out of the county.

Alright, now to start the wine/publisher thread! (a.k.a. a "whiners whine with wine" or "Wine Whine" thread)

crosseyed reader · Mar 2, 2006

scribbler1382 said:
Not abandoned -- set free.

Heh, yes, I love this.

I set my first free knowing full well that my second, third and fourth were far better pieces of work. With the first, it's much like a whiny child - you get so sick of wiping its nose and changing its dirty clothes, you finally boot it out the door.

Anitraka · Mar 2, 2006

crosseyed reader said:
Heh, yes, I love this.

I set my first free knowing full well that my second, third and fourth were far better pieces of work. With the first, it's much like a whiny child - you get so sick of wiping its nose and changing its dirty clothes, you finally boot it out the door.

I dont like to boot anything out the door. What I started is what I shall finish. I work with the story, make the story grow, and then watch it be successful. Like you were talking about a child. You work with him/her, you help him/her grow, and then watch him/her be successful.

PastMidnight · Mar 2, 2006

So, if so many first novels end up being just a learning experience on the way to bigger and better things, how often are first novels published?

badducky · Mar 2, 2006

I don't know the hard data, but -- bragging a little bit today since I was rejected earlier this week and need the boost -- mine was!

Anitraka · Mar 2, 2006

badducky said:
I don't know the hard data, but -- bragging a little bit today since I was rejected earlier this week and need the boost -- mine was!

Congrats!!

Jamesaritchie · Mar 2, 2006

First novel

Anitraka said:
For everyone who has writen a novel:

Does your first one seem like it could have been better but you just don't know how to make it better??

The first novel I wrote sold, but, yes, it could definitely have been much better. Given another chance, I could fix most of the problems, but fixing them all would essentially mean writing a new novel.

Sometimes you just can't make an early effort much better. All you can do is use that experience to make your next effort much better.

SeanDSchaffer · Mar 2, 2006

I'd have to say that my first novel was pretty shabby at best. I'm surprised nowadays that I took the gamble to even submit it. The writing, in my own humble opinion, was that bad.

But I think part of the reason for this feeling is that my writing has improved tremendously over the last several years. My writing then is an embarrassment to me now, but at the time it was the best I had ever produced.

When I look at it that way, I feel somewhat better about the accomplishment I made back then.

BlackCrowesChick · Mar 2, 2006

Yes, it seems like it could've been better. I remember when I read through it, at first I was kind of mad about it because I just didn't think it was that good. It wasn't what I was expecting. As it went on, I saw that I got better. I showed improvement throughout it and the story got better the farther into it I went.

I know its by no means my best work. Still, its my baby. I'm proud that I wrote it, even though I know I can do better than it. It got me on the right track for writing and proved to me that I could write a novel. It was a learning experience, and one that I'm grateful for.

Stew21 · Mar 3, 2006

To the OP - if you aren't satisfied with the way it turned out and you feel you have improved for the experience you have two choices, you can consider it a draft and re-write it or you can move on to the next.
I improved on mine half way through and took that learned experience and made the next draft better, so the less experienced beginning of the book matched the more experienced second half...or you can leave it as it is, walk away, start a new one and dump those experiences into the next and the next, growing each time for what you have learned.
If you have the patience to stay with it and make it the best it can be, then do it. If you don't mind completely gutting it and redoing it, then do it. But I just can't shake the feeling that no matter how much you do to it for how long, that the work you do after/later/next is still going to make it pale in comparison to the finished product of the subsequent works. I think the first no matter how good it is, will always be something you could look back at to see where you've come from and where you have taken it.
Its like a before/after picture of the writer you are...even if the before picture wasn't that bad, the after is going to be better (probably) because you've matured as a writer...
jmho...

Trish

A Question For Everyone Who Has Writen A Novel

Anitraka

Julie Worth

What? I have a title?

blacbird

Sharon Mock

Wing nut

Zonk

badducky

No Time For Chitchat, Kemosabe.

Branwyn

Print release:Sept.1,'09

Julie Worth

What? I have a title?

ChaosTitan

Around

scribbler1382

Write For You, Edit For The Reader

cwfgal

On the rocks

Stew21

Anitraka

badducky

No Time For Chitchat, Kemosabe.

Stew21

badducky

No Time For Chitchat, Kemosabe.

crosseyed reader

Anitraka

PastMidnight

Oponionated

badducky

No Time For Chitchat, Kemosabe.

Anitraka

Jamesaritchie

SeanDSchaffer

BlackCrowesChick

Uptown Girl

Stew21