DIgusted with first three chaps

[galleyona]

Is it normal to not be engrossed in your own fiction sometimes? I've been trying to read through my first three chapters and it diesn't read as well as it FELT when I was writing it.

I really got carried away with unecessary dialogue, details and now I'm stuck with a BUNCH of editing before I can move any further. I bought some nice bright pens today.

Anybody ever chopped the length of their works down to at least half after looking at it? Ever asked yourself -- what ZONE was I in? The Twightlight Zone?

...I must have been.

[Fresie]

I really can't remember now who said this, and can't even remember the quote correctly (it's very possible I came across it on this very site or through a link on it), but I think, it reflects the state of affairs! I love it, anyway, and it goes more or less like this: "The difference between a beginning writer and an experienced one is that a beginning writer says, "This chapter is a mess! It's all over, I'm finished!" and an experienced one says: "This chapter is a mess! Wow, now I've got something to work with!"

[SRHowen]

a lot of the time writers end up tossing those first chapters--they may be back story and now you are ready to start the real story.

Shawn

[James D Macdonald]

I wouldn't recommend editing those first three chapters until after you reach "the end" on your manuscript.

[Greenwolf103]

What UJ said.

[Gala]

Hell yes, happens all the time. In fact, I've learned to laugh at myself. Did so today drinking coffee and editing at Starbucks.

I even allow myself to ink in red, "I suck" or "This is the worst writing I've ever seen. Consider alternate vocations."

The other side happens: I read profound thought, artful words, fascinating characters. Also, I've come across pieces with no header or date info, and having forgotten I wrote them, thought, "This is good, I wonder who wrote it?"

I can appreciate editing my work and the dilemma, "If I'm bored to tears red lining this, what of my poor readers?" Delete time.

But I don't go for these luxuries until I've a complete draft to work through. I've learned to have fun brutalizing my own work.

Be glad you can spot your less-than writing.

Enjoy the process, I say.

<img border=0 src="http://www.absolutewrite.com/images/Emoterofl5.gif" />

[galleyona]

I feel good about being brave and responsible enough to go back and slash things up with the red pen.

I guess I was a bit pompous believing how great my story was going, LOL. I thought I was really on a roll...don't we all sometimes?

[spooknov]

I thought I was really on a roll

Then you should stay on a roll and keep writing. Don't worry about what needs to be cut. That will come later.

Yes, I'm aware that's easier said than done. :smack

[James D Macdonald]

Want to know what I see entirely too much of?

New writers who write and re-write their first few chapters ... for years.

They never get a novel finished because they're convinced they can't go on until the opening is perfect.

The opening is not going to be perfect. Continue. Later you'll have the chance to not only edit the opening, but edit the mid-book and the climax too. Until you have the climax written you may not know what the opening is.

[maestrowork]

Amen, Jim.

Most often your first few chapters (or maybe even first half) have a lot of backstories and character developments that help you flesh out the whole story. But you don't know that until you're done. Finish the first draft first. Then you may decide to cut, move, add, whatever.

I cut out the first 7 chapters of my novel during my 3rd draft and rearranged a few more. The first few chapters were well written, I believe, but they really didn't belong in the story.

[John Buehler]

I'm experienced in a number of things, but not in writing fiction. I'm learning a brand new skill. As I go, I've noticed that as I build up more experience - as I get more chapters under my belt - I'm more willing to toss a paragraph here and there. Maybe I'll even toss a chapter, dump that prologue, etc. in the future. As I get enough manuscripts under my belt, maybe I'll be content to have some of them 'just not work out'.

Why is this happening? Because I'm finding that I can write, and that some is good and some stinks. And in that, it's just like any other endeavor. Playing baseball? Over a career, you're going to hit .225, but during the first season you're going to be sweating every at-bat. After a while you come to realize that you're going to have hot streaks and cold streaks. So you just keep plowing along, waiting for that next happy time of being on a hot streak, and otherwise hitting at about .225

In the end, it all averages out. Just keep moving along, building up experience, and improving your craft. Trust in the process. And if you've developed expertise in anything else, look to your experiences there to remind you to trust in the process. Those experiences will remind you that you get better over time - but only if you have the experiences.

So don't keep reviewing that same strike-out that you had in the 9th inning of the tied game three years ago. Move on. Swing the bat. Get more innings under your belt. You'll get better.

JB

[aka eraser]

If you're going to hit .225 over your career you'd best have a terrific glove. ;)

[Oberon]

It helps to know where you have gone before you start to worry about where you came from. It can change. My second novel started with one sentence: "The day after her 18th birthday Sally Herring ran away from home." I had no idea why, or where she was going, i just started writing. As the story developed, I learned more about who she was, what her problems were, where she was going, what happened along the way. then I went back and did a lot of editing and adjusting my earlier chapters to fit the character and events that I had created. I don't know if it's any good or not, so far I have a number of rejections to add to my collection, but it makes sense to me. One piece of advice I got years ago: Just write, and keep writing, and when you reach the end, put it aside for a while, then come back and tear it up and make it good.

"Writing is not hard. Just get paper and pencil, sit down, and write it as it occurs to you. the writing is easy -- it's the occurring that's hard." Stephen Leacock

[Stijn Hommes]

I wouldn't recommend editing those first three chapters until after you reach "the end" on your manuscript. I couldn't have said it better myself. Worry about the editing after you finished.

[Azraelsbane]

sually by the time I get to the end of a manuscript, when I go back and look at the beginning my writing is so atrocious I sometimes wonder if I had been abducted by aliens. Truth is, you grow as a writer so much during the process that I would be worried if you got to the end, looked back and didn't see glaring problems. Just my opinion, and PLs excuse typos, as I'm writing this on an iPhone while boarding a plane (yes, I'm that addicted to AW).

[JohnDavidPaxton]

You're way, way, WAY ahead of me.

I find everything I've ever written odious. So, find a chapter you like and be ahead of the game. :D

[enchantedfire5]

Is it normal to not be engrossed in your own fiction sometimes? I've been trying to read through my first three chapters and it diesn't read as well as it FELT when I was writing it.

I really got carried away with unecessary dialogue, details and now I'm stuck with a BUNCH of editing before I can move any further. I bought some nice bright pens today.

Anybody ever chopped the length of their works down to at least half after looking at it? Ever asked yourself -- what ZONE was I in? The Twightlight Zone?

...I must have been.

I know exactly what you mean man. I've been working on my story for a few years now and have revised it 50 times it seems. Now I'm formating it and preparing to send it in.

But anyway, I have written things and went back over them and said: "What the heck? It sounded good when I WAS writing it, but as I read it it's lame!" LOL.

[IrishElim]

Heh, when I wrote my first novel I set it aside for like a year or two before I looked at it again. Now I'm completely disgusted with it.

Some might say that's a sign I should stop writing. I like to think I've just improved so much in the time thats gone by.

[JoNightshade]

I periodically encounter a roadblock in my brain and then become disgusted with everything I have written.

I just came out of something like a three-day funk in which my entire novel looked like complete crap, was plotted all wrong, and needed to change genres (you may have noted my thread about that).

Then I figured out the next scene and now it looks perfectly fine. :)

I think partially these things can be just an attack of authorial anxiety.