How many trunk novels have you written?

andiwrite · Apr 11, 2016

L. OBrien said:
That's really cool, and it makes me feel a lot better about the timeline that it takes to write a good book. I've been writing consistently for about 7 or 8 years now and I was beginning to think that I was an outlier. The fact that you spend that much time perfecting your story (I checked out your amazon link and perfecting seems like an accurate word choice) puts things in context.

Thanks, I'm glad I can help inspire someone.

It's far from a perfect book, but I'm proud of it, and I would rather learn by polishing one project I really care about over years vs. spending seven years writing seven novels and trunking them. At least this way, you end up with something you can publish by the end.

You have to really love your story though. I could probably recite that thing word for word at this point.

tiakall · Apr 12, 2016

Went back and counted, and there's only six I've given up on completely, which surprised me as I thought the number would be higher. But that's not counting the trunked ones I never finished (at least seven) or the projects that were never intended to be commercially published (a whopping seventeen).

I have eleven others that I haven't given up on/am currently working on. I tend to go in cycles. Write a draft, set it aside for a year or two after despairing over plotholes, have it randomly seize my brain again with the perfect solution, redraft, discover new plotholes. My process is...slow, to say the least. :gaah

Parametric · Apr 12, 2016

Myrealana · Apr 12, 2016

None.

I've finished one book, and I still believe it's worth working on. I'm on my last (I promise) round of re-writes. In the three years since I finished it, I've learned a lot about writing, and I'm applying those lessons on this re-write. While I'm working on the final draft, I'm querying agents. If I run out of agents, I'll move on to publishers. If I run out of those, I have an experienced editor and a professional cover designer who have agreed to do their work for a share of the profits and I will self-publish.

It will go out the door after I get to the end this time. Come hell or high water.

Then, I can write the sequel, which I've had outlined for a year, but haven't been able to work on because of the uncertain fate of this book.

Parametric · Apr 12, 2016

andiwrite said:
Growing up, I was always told how it was borderline impossible to publish a book. It wasn't until I started hanging out on author forums that I began to realize how very possible it actually is.

blacbird said:
Growing up, I was always told how it was borderline impossible to publish a book. It wasn't until I started trying to get things published that I began to realize how truly impossible for me it actually is.

caw

I used to believe that hard work and dedication led to success. Publishing has been a very harsh lesson in reality.

Myrealana · Apr 12, 2016

Wait, I guess I do have one.

I wrote a NaNoWriMo book a couple of year ago. Won. Finished the story.

But, I don't think you can really call it a "Trunk novel" as I completely shitcanned it. I never want to see that book again. I threw out all my notes, deleted all the files. I hate the very idea of the book.

NaNo killed my book, and I will never do it again.

cmi0616 · Apr 12, 2016

Two and a half. The first two I wrote in high school and are therefore, almost by definition, bad. The second one I wrote as a college sophomore when I was just an incredibly angry person, and that certainly comes out in the novel (or what I wrote of it), unfortunately to its detriment.

America's Proust · May 9, 2016

I have nine trunk novels.

andiwrite · May 9, 2016

Myrealana said:
Wait, I guess I do have one.

I wrote a NaNoWriMo book a couple of year ago. Won. Finished the story.

But, I don't think you can really call it a "Trunk novel" as I completely shitcanned it. I never want to see that book again. I threw out all my notes, deleted all the files. I hate the very idea of the book.

NaNo killed my book, and I will never do it again.

Can I ask why? I loved the NaNo experience myself. I'm currently rewriting a NaNo book I did two years ago.

VoireyLinger · May 9, 2016

Hmm.. I was mid-novel on my first and took a break to write a short story and novella. I subbed the short story and declined an offer on it. The novella sold to the second publisher that saw it. I don't consider the novel trunked but it's been in storage since 2008. Someday I'll get it all polished up and publish. It's a good story, but a hot mess.

I consider my writer friends key to selling so quickly. I was a strong writer, a good story teller, but they were able to help me form those skills into something marketable. I made several important changes to the story based on feedback from people who were signed with the publishers I was targeting. I highly value my writing friends.

maggiee19 · May 13, 2016

I have several unfinished novels, all from the same series, but none of them are trunked. Eventually I will come back and finish them when I finish my current works in progress.

Varthikes · May 13, 2016

Four, plus another that I never finished. Two of the completed ones I am currently, or planning to, re-write and expand. Also planning to do this with the one that hadn't been completed.

R.Barrows · May 13, 2016

I started writing early, and I've never been published other than self-published (unless you consider the plethora of technical manuals I've written - those have been published).

I have dozens of trunk novels sitting in various places. I'm very bad with queries. I'm also poor at selling myself. But I've always kept writing. I enjoy it. It entertains me. And while I doubt very much that I'll ever go back to those novels and try to publish them, if I ever do get published I'll probably use the concepts behind them and maybe the characters in them as inspiration to write entirely new books with the knowledge I've learned from thirty years of drafting. I read a considerable amount, and most of my older stories involve ideas that I haven't encountered. The writing might not be the best, but the framework is there. So they're definitely useful to keep.

pinkbowvintage · May 14, 2016

The only novel I've ever finished is now on submission. I trunked one unfinished project that I started back in high school but may try and re-write eventually. Other than that, I typically have trouble finishing stuff. I have a lot of non-starters from since I was a kid.

C.bronco · May 14, 2016

I trunk nothing. Never. Say. Die!

Cabbit · May 16, 2016

This thread is very encouraging! So many of you have published your first novels! Maybe I have a shot after all.

I have one novel that I abandoned about a third of the way through. I got derailed by seeing a trailer for a movie that had an eerily similar premise.
It had some bits in it that I'm still fond of and I might go back to finish it one day, but for the moment I have too many other ideas that are clamoring for attention!
I just finished my first novel. I am in the process of editing it now. I'm learning as much as I can to make it something other people might want to read.

darkangel77 · May 17, 2016

No actual novels, per se, but I used to write a ton of fan fiction and novellas when I was younger. Trunked them all...maybe about 10 of them? I might go back someday and see if any of them have potential, but we'll see!

Myrealana · May 17, 2016

andiwrite said:
Can I ask why? I loved the NaNo experience myself. I'm currently rewriting a NaNo book I did two years ago.

The pressure for word count at the expense of everything else led me down a rabbit hole of stupid, irreconcilable contradictions and plot holes. The characters retained no consistency because every little idea I had plopped down on the page. When I finished I was embarrassed to have written it. People - I can't even reasonable call them characters because they were so unreal in their actions and speech - in a completely unoriginal and poorly thought-out setting with a plot so full of contrived coincidences I had no chance of ever fixing it.

The only good thing that came out of the experience is resolving the plotter/pantser question for me forever. I am NOT a pantser.

And yes, I realize you can NaNo without pantsing by doing all your pre-writing and outlining before Nov 1. But, like getting sick after too many shots can leave one forever wary of tequila, I have no interest in risking the NaNo hangover again.

dragonfliet · May 17, 2016

I wrote a novel when I was 15-17, and trunked that. While there were interesting ideas, it was so bad that I have no desire to publish it. It's a lot of work to "lose" when you don't publish things, but for me, I would rather write something that I'm proud of doing, that I don't think anyone else could do, rather than something that is good enough, or dramatically flawed. I have a few novels that got to around 20k-30k words that I ended up stopping work on, that I may perhaps come back to, but that's it as far as "trunked" novels go.

The great thing about viable self publishing is that ANYONE can publish anything they like, and the question is no longer about appeasing gatekeepers (unless you want to do that), but making sure that you are happy getting what you want into the world.

andiwrite · May 17, 2016

Myrealana said:
The pressure for word count at the expense of everything else led me down a rabbit hole of stupid, irreconcilable contradictions and plot holes. The characters retained no consistency because every little idea I had plopped down on the page. When I finished I was embarrassed to have written it. People - I can't even reasonable call them characters because they were so unreal in their actions and speech - in a completely unoriginal and poorly thought-out setting with a plot so full of contrived coincidences I had no chance of ever fixing it.

The only good thing that came out of the experience is resolving the plotter/pantser question for me forever. I am NOT a pantser.

And yes, I realize you can NaNo without pantsing by doing all your pre-writing and outlining before Nov 1. But, like getting sick after too many shots can leave one forever wary of tequila, I have no interest in risking the NaNo hangover again.

LOL! Yep, that pretty much describes the NaNo experience.

I guess I tend to thrive in that sort of madness.

maggiee19 · May 20, 2016

I've never participated in NaNo. I don't know what it's like to write a 50,000 word novel. For me, 50,000 words is not enough. My first drafts tend to be 140,000 words or more.

R.Barrows · May 20, 2016

The only good thing that came out of the experience is resolving the plotter/pantser question for me forever. I am NOT a pantser.

That's a good thing to recognize. I am, unfortunately, a pantser. I've tried to outline, and no matter what I do the story takes its own course anyway. But I can write for an ending at least, so that's what I do. Anymore, I write the ending first and start the draft with the goal of getting there. I kind of view it as a curse, and I envy people who can be organized enough to follow an outline. But pantsing does produce some interesting story arcs.

Sagml John · May 20, 2016

R.Barrows said:
But pantsing does produce some interesting story arcs.

Yep. I didn't know what was going to happen next till my fingers came up with something. Pantsing is fun -- since trying to publish isn't. Also, the story arc is usually natural.

I have to get the stories and ideas out of my head while I can. It feels good that they are out of there even though world's slush piles are miles deep. BTW, thanks for starting this thread -- it is a GREAT topic! Trunking isn't so embarrassing now.

Moon Daughter · May 20, 2016

I have trunked two novels, although sometimes I just think of it as one because the very first manuscript I wrote is just...well, it deserves to be burned and then pissed on.

How many trunk novels have you written?

andiwrite

tiakall

lurk

Parametric

Myrealana

I aim to misbehave

Parametric

Myrealana

I aim to misbehave

cmi0616

America's Proust

andiwrite

VoireyLinger

Angel Wing Fetish

maggiee19

Varthikes

Dragon Writer

R.Barrows

Count the Electrons

pinkbowvintage

♔

C.bronco

I have plans...

Cabbit

darkangel77

Head in the clouds

Myrealana

I aim to misbehave

dragonfliet

andiwrite

maggiee19

R.Barrows

Count the Electrons

Sagml John

figuring it all out

Moon Daughter

How many trunk novels have you written?

*lurk*

I aim to misbehave

I aim to misbehave

Angel Wing Fetish

Dragon Writer

Count the Electrons

&#9812;

I have plans...

Head in the clouds

I aim to misbehave

Count the Electrons

figuring it all out

lurk

♔