Rejecting Your Own Novel

I've given up on quite a few of my stories over the years. Many of them were just plain too short to be marketable, while others were so badly written they would see the inside of the trash can before too long at an editor's desk.

I've trunked a very nicely-done novel recently, but more for religious reasons than for bad writing. Still, I have indeed rejected many of my early works. I now know that, whether or not they had good stories, they were not publishable at the time I finished them.

I used to give up on stories when I was much younger. These were only first tries, anyway, and the storylines too thin. But looking back at them (I've kept them all) I now see that they have great ideas for real novels.
I did "Daughter of the Sun" from one of these old stories. The original story is now the first part of the story, and I just continued on it.


Nickie

I abandoned my first novel because it carried too much baggage from all the struggles I had trying to write it--later I realized I had also grown out of it. There were a couple of other projects that followed that were abandoned for other reasons.

The one we're submitting now went through enough revisions to be ten novels--but it took all that to learn how to write one. Every time we learned one new thing, we found a couple more that needed to be worked through.

Writer Steve Berry said in an interview in the ITW newsletter that he wrote ten before he learned the skills to write a book.

I've never rejected anything once I start writing it. There have been many ideas kicking around in my brain that at one point I wanted to turn into novels but after much thinking I decided not to.

Sure

Tia Nevitt said:

I was wondering how many of you have rejected your own novel? Have you ever taken a realistic look at your own painstakingly crafted novel and made the difficult decision to set it aside?

I have completed two novels. I call the first one my "learning novel". Like the drawings in a sketchbook, it is the canvas upon which I honed my skill as a writer. I'm not trying to get it published. I AM trying to get the second book published. If I do not succeed with this one, I have more novel ideas waiting in the wings.

I read on Janet Evanovich's website that she wrote four novels before she managed to get one published. I figure that I can give it at least that many tries before I give up!

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If you start every new project (like I always do) with a lot of really pompous and bad ideas, it takes about 3 novels to write your way clear of your own crap. Some people may bring less baggage to the work of writing and their very first book may be just fine....but I have dumped about 10 novels more or less (not including 4 or 5 massive rewrites on some that may still be coming along somehow against all the odds).

I have dumped some novels and short stories, but I always tend to keep ideas from them and/or characters that may show up some where else. So I never consider any of these stories a total waste.

I think the key statement in the original post is "taking a realistic look at your novel."

How do you do that? I mean, yeah, if you let it sit in a desk drawer long enough then you have lost a little of the emotional ties you had to it and you can judge it a little more fairly. But even then, it's like judging your children from a distance. You can never be entirely objective. Your love -- and your rejection -- are both born out of your novel and it's attachement to you.

I know I'm slowly taking a look at my novel and going "Urban fantasy. Urban. Fantasy." And getting embarassed by its existance. This happens with all projects that sit around the house too long. They start to rot away.

I'm looking back at some of the ones I started and just ran out of interest. Now that I'm older and, hopefully wiser, I'm finding things in them that are really pretty solid. There's a lot of crap to wash away, but there are some well-written parts, and good ideas. I've completed 5 novels and have 3 WIPs but never submitted anything until a couple of month's ago so I'm still learning and likely will learn until I die.

Yeppers, it happens. I've had four first chapters of four different novels hashed to pieces on the SYW thread. And probably deservedly so. I just can't seem to start the books off with the conflict and problem right up front. I spend too much time tuning my musical instrument, when the conductor yells, "It's time to play!" I honestly don't know which novel suffered the least as far as comments, hence my indecision. I'm blocked up pretty good at the moment and hesitant about starting anything new.

I know which one I'd love to write over all the others. But it's SF, and the market gods are screaming at me, "The competition is too tough, here, and it's one of the smaller niches--forget it."

What's a writer to do? I'm going to my private library and pick out some winners, to study the frontend and see if I can remedy this problem.

Tri

I rejected my first three novels, one after I'd done about five major revisions. I'm glad I did, because by the fourth I felt like I'd gotten a hang of things, and it took no time to land an agent.

Sadly, that book didn't sell, but since I wrote a fifth in the meantime I'm still good to go. Rejections? Fie on you!

I can't afford to reject my own books, either emotionally or professionally! Haven't been doing this long enough to know when to "quit" a book.

So, um, Triceratops, what is your dilemma again? You've sold several books, for cryin' out loud!!!

Oh. Sorry. You're stuck right now. I am trying very hard to drum up some sympathy for you

P.S. I am hoping that, if a publisher likes ONE of my novels, they will say the magic words: You got anything else?

My first novel was a 16-year love affair. I rewrote the damn thing more times than I could count. I was still convinced that it was my Great American Novel. I even referred to it as the GAN. When I got serious about submitting and finding an agent, it took triple-digit rejections to convince me that maybe, even in its last incarnation, the GAN wasn't ready for prime time. Time to move on.

So I wrote a second book. Five months. (My production time improved.) This was a stronger book -- and in a completely different genre -- but it still wasn't ready for prime time. This time, I scored about 40 rejections, but many were helpful and encouraging (as opposed to form rejections, which only tell you "NO" but not why). Time to move on.

I have to throw in here, at this point, I was damn depressed over the whole thing. I thought I sucked at writing and would never produce anything good enough. I almost threw in the towel. I didn't.

Instead, I wrote a third book, merging the genres from the two previous novels. Wrote it in two months. (I was possessed, and didn't really sleep.) Scored an agent in three weeks (I had five offers of representation) and a week later, a three-book sale to a publisher.

Since then, I rewrote that first book (so I guess now it's an 18-year love affair). But I did something completely different with it: I scrapped the entire thing except for the characters, whom I made younger, and the system of magic that I'd created. I transformed my adult contemporary fantasy into a young adult urban fantasy. And now it's on submission.

I never would have had the confidence to try something completely different with the old story if I hadn't walked away from it...and wrote something outside of the genre.

Novel

I threw away a completed, polished novel without allowing anyone to see it. I suppose that counts. It might have been publishable, but it was not something I wanted to have published.

I do hope you finished those four novels, Tri. It's often easier to re-hash and hone the beginning once the ending is known and done.

triceretops said:

Yeppers, it happens. I've had four first chapters of four different novels hashed to pieces on the SYW thread. And probably deservedly so. I just can't seem to start the books off with the conflict and problem right up front. I spend too much time tuning my musical instrument, when the conductor yells, "It's time to play!" I honestly don't know which novel suffered the least as far as comments, hence my indecision. I'm blocked up pretty good at the moment and hesitant about starting anything new.

I know which one I'd love to write over all the others. But it's SF, and the market gods are screaming at me, "The competition is too tough, here, and it's one of the smaller niches--forget it."

What's a writer to do? I'm going to my private library and pick out some winners, to study the frontend and see if I can remedy this problem.

Tri

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Not yet, but the ink of the current manuscript isn't completely dry.

I wrote a lot of novels when I was young, and as soon as I had finished them, I realized I could do even better the next time around. So I would toss them as soon as I was done with them.

I think those were good learning drafts. Until I started writing novels that I thought were actually decent, I just kept putting stuff aside.

I've only tried seeking publication for three out of lots of novels I've written, and only felt that one of them would really ever make it. It was the only one that has so far.

I think I could go back and rewrite some of my old novels, because they do have good parts and great ideas. But why do that when I've got new ideas and new internal issues to struggle with?

I guess everyone works differently, but I'm all in favor of realizing that you learned a lot while writing a novel, but it just isn't going to cut it in the marketplace, no matter how much editing you do.

Jamesaritchie said:

I threw away a completed, polished novel without allowing anyone to see it. I suppose that counts. It might have been publishable, but it was not something I wanted to have published.

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May I ask why, in general terms? Was it in a genre you didn't want to be nailed to career-wise, perhaps? Or just the quality of it?

This first novel of mine is fantasy (with alot of romance/spiritual themes) but I have only one other idea for a fantasy, involving an elvish kingdom (which has maybe been sooo overdone)
Though I love fantasy, I don't consider myself a fantasy writer -- it just "came out" that way for my first book. I love the story, but all the other ideas I have (summarized or blocked out) tend towards romance or women's lit.

So I am wondering if I want my debut novel to be in fantasy at all?

Enough crap is published, that I'm not of a mind to think my stuff is so bad that it can never be.

Tia Nevitt said:

I was wondering how many of you have rejected your own novel? Have you ever taken a realistic look at your own painstakingly crafted novel and made the difficult decision to set it aside?

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Yup.

Several, in fact.

There was the one I started about 5 or 6 years ago, that was SFish. Petered out in about the second chapter. I found it about a year ago, and I was right to abandon that. Total rubbish.

Another one I finished a rough draft for. It was about some guy, a soil engineer (seriously), going around on some fantasy land or another. It meandered all over the place. Although I put a lot of time into the draft, after I put it aside for about a month and went back to it, I couldn't read it. It was bad, bad, bad.

A recent one, which I also finished the rough draft for, was set in a city near where I live (it's not NYC). Then I decided to make it into a made up city. I kept going back and forth on that one; I even had the first 250 words up on Evil Editor, just to get a sense of what other people thought (and it made it into his Novel Deviations book, lol). To no avail; by the middle of the book, the idea ran out of steam. I couldn't think of where the heck to take it.

My current WIP, which is "resting" for the time being, I'll be getting back to. I love the characters, love the situations, it's got a bit of humor all the way through it (which is important to me). Plus, I outlined it, using index cards, so I was able to chug through it without losing too much momentum.

There's another novel I finished about two years ago that I still love. The problem with it's too bloated, as is. Again, love the characters, love the situations, has a bit of humor all the way through (um, notice a pattern? ). I didn't outline that one, but I'm going to go back to it at some point and outline it then.

So far, that's it. I have an idea, and made some preliminary sketches, on a story a couple of years ago; still have the notes on that one. I'm not sure I'll ever develop that one, or another one I have (which is just in my brain at this point).

~Nancy

I've rejected all four novels I've written. The first one I wrote is probably the most publishable of any of them, and it did garner some personalized rejection letters, but ultimately I decided it wasn't worth my time to revise it. When I finally manage to get published, I want the book to be something that's distinctly mine, and the first book I wrote was extremely derivative.

Sometimes I wish we had a forum called The Dead End Gang. We could post all of our false starts and partial novels, then have the readers chip in to either confirm its viability or condemn it to the gallows. I think a lot of us suffer delusions and self-inflicted paranoia about the quality and potential of our own work. Who is to say we haven't shelved or killed perfectly good stories? I know this is what writing groups are all about, but some of us don't have that kind of connection and support. Except for AW, of course.

The biggest demon I have (who slaps my muse around) is the one that snarls, "This premise is overused. You could write like a god but this story will still tank and be rejected. So what's the use, bub?" I have three 50-page novels like this. I have one that is an alien invasion that I thought was unique and different--it ran over 450 pages. I trunked it, listening to that demon again.

Tri

bylinebree said:

May I ask why, in general terms? Was it in a genre you didn't want to be nailed to career-wise, perhaps? Or just the quality of it?

This first novel of mine is fantasy (with alot of romance/spiritual themes) but I have only one other idea for a fantasy, involving an elvish kingdom (which has maybe been sooo overdone)
Though I love fantasy, I don't consider myself a fantasy writer -- it just "came out" that way for my first book. I love the story, but all the other ideas I have (summarized or blocked out) tend towards romance or women's lit.

So I am wondering if I want my debut novel to be in fantasy at all?

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It just wasn't something I wanted published. It wasn't very good, I said some things I didn't believe, and I told a story I didn't like.

I could have used a pseudonym. Lord knows I do often enough. But that novel was just something I didn't think was very good, and that I didn't believe in.