False Starts

I've made a few false starts in my time, and will most likely make more in the future. Sometimes it's only 5 or 10k into the story when I realize something isn't clicking - sometimes it's more like 25 or 30k.

It hurts, to delete so much time and effort, but the alternative is worse. Keeping something just because it took 2 weeks to write, regardless of how bad it's turning out? When it happens to me, it's usually two false starts, followed by a huge wave of inspirational fire that takes me through one, sometimes two or three new complete novels.

Then there might be another false start or two, then I'm back on the horse and racing.

Only once (so far) have I completed a novel's first draft only to let it sit in a drawer, uninspired enough to do the required edits/second draft. Someday, maybe.

Or maybe not.

I like to draft quickly, like a few weeks, to get my ideas on the page. That way, I don't have time to worry about not finishing.

Sometimes the story needs to be completely rewritten, but that's okay too. Once that nervousness about not finishing is gone, my head is clear, and the pressure is off me somewhat.

Even if I never do anything else with a story, it still exists, and there is some satisfaction there. Every word you write is valuable to your growth as a writer, so keep that in mind and keep plugging away.



Nicole

Somebody who is far more qualified than I will probably pop in here to answer this question soon.

Meanwhile...I'd have to say that different people have different writing processes. For me, I need an idea of what the whole looks like, before I start writing. (Sometimes I'm wrong, but...) Other people start with what they've got, and let the rest grow.

I've actually never had an idea "peter out". If anything, they seem to grow the more you write them. It's almost like the act of writing applies fertilizer. It's when I don't write an idea that it starts to wither and die.

As far as getting 50 pages in and realizing that you made a mistake...so what? I've written short stories longer than that which I now realize were total crap. So, you can write 50 (or 5,000) bad pages regardless of whether you write poetry, short-short stories, or novels.

Also, all the writing you do makes you a better writer. Nothing is ever really lost. You think you're creating a novel or a short story, but in fact you're creating a writer. (Just thinking about it without writing, on the other hand, doesn't improve your writing.) So, you probably SHOULD write 50 (or 5,000) bad pages.

You won't even know what the real start until you've reached "The End." Perhaps not until you've reached "The End" of the second draft.

Save all your false starts. You may find out that one of them was the real one after all.

I have a few 'false starts' saved in a folder incase I ever want to work on them, or take ideas from them.

With my current, larger, WIP I was forced to start over--Have I mentioned I hate computers?--because of a computer meltdown.

But it turned out okay because the newest version seems to be a lot better than the first.

My first novel made it to 55k before I realized it stunk.

Save it, rewrite it later, use chunks for something else.

Think of it this way, it all goes towards improving your writing.

I've had several false starts where I've just lost interest in the project or realized it wasn't a good idea - too tired, already done etc. The longest it took me to realize a project was wrong was 5 years. I kept rewriting and submitting until eventually it got into even my thick skull that the novel wasn't ever going to make it, no matter how many times or ways I rewrote it. So I bid it a fond and sad farewell and went to work on other novels and short stories. I'm hoping that I at least learned something from the experience, became a better writer because of the practice.

I am the queen of false starts. I've gotten 100 pages into a novel before realising I need to trash it. Worst feeling ever.

However, I figure any practice is good, right? Nothing is a total waste, cause you get better from it, even if you don't finish it.

Generally it takes longer to plot wrangle than it does to draft.

50 pages is peanuts.

On the WIP I just finished, I started and got 30k into it before knowing it was just wrong. Then I started again...20k into it this time before starting over. I started a third time and about 30k into it I knew I had to change stuff, but I refused to start over. I finished that, and I'm I'm revising, which is basically starting over again because I'm changing half the story.

It's the fifth start...I'm hoping this one works...

I can usually determine if one of my concepts isn't going to work while working on the outline and back story. My outlines are probably more detailed than most so I can make sure that the overall pacing, causalities, and characters feel right.

I've also trained myself to not take any idea seriously that doesn't keep coming back to haunt me. This discipline helps me avoid getting excited about ideas that I may only be temporarily obsessed about. It's my hope that this approach will also allow my stories to remain immune to contemporary influence, which might otherwise corrupt what could be a timeless story.

The story I'm working on now is based off of ideas I've been entertaining since I was twelve. I'm now twenty-seven so the concepts have obviously changed in significant ways, but I finally realized I couldn't ignore them anymore. They're simply too much of a powerful influence in my life to cast aside.

Most people will say that outlining and hashing out the story that way will go a long way to avoiding false starts, but I just can't write that way. I'm one of those people who discover the story through the writing of it and one of the necessary results of that approach is a certain amount of fumbling around before I really find the story. It used to really frustrate me, but ever since I tried NaNo the last few years, I've just come to embrace the inefficient artist in me that can't do it any other way.

I had to trash a 10k false start last week. I still haven't gotten back on the horse after that demoralizing delete. And I outlined too! Such a piss-off. It just didn't work in practice, though.

When I start again, I'll do the same project, but only after a major retooling.

False starts. Every first draft for me is a false start. I'm halfway through the current MS. I already know I'm changing it to first person in second draft. False start, sure it is, but I'll keep writing until the end, and begin a much more educated second start.
I did this with the first MS I wrote too. False start - twice. I made the mistake of stopping mid-draft and going back to the beginning and rewriting the whole thing. I should have gotten to the end first and then done it, it would have saved me a lot in rewrites on the subsequent drafts if I would have known what I needed to work on as a complete work. It was an extra half draft.

I trashed a 10K false start a few months ago, but kept my two-page outline. I'll let it stew for a bit before trying again.

Last month, I trashed a 2K false start on a different project. On the current project, I'm forcing myself to reach "The End" no matter what so I can finally have something to revise. It worked when I wrote my "long shorts" (8-11K words). I figure it should work for my first novel as well.

Different people work different ways. I am a big outliner/researcher/planner, and so I almost never have the kind of false start you're describing here -- but I have had many ideas wither on the vine, so to speak. I usually don't start the writing process until I have an extremely detailed full-book outline, and if I can't create that kind of outline for a story, I don't even start writing. So I have as many concepts sputter out as anybody else (probably more than most), just earlier.

In my experience (which encompasses all of seven years) it's best to think structurally about your beginning. Knowing what you want it to accomplish in terms of tone, viewpoint, and events will serve as an index to a beginning's fitness.

This doesn't require a whole lot of outlining, in my opinion. What it does require is an instinct or knowledge of signposts. Has something happened to Hero that he cannot ignore? Something that has invaded his life? Think of Aristotle's concept of peripeteia--reversal--and you'll be fine.

I've read the advice of some writers whom I respect--Orson Scott Card springs to mind--who footle with their beginnings until they get it right, and only then proceed with the rest of the book. But this technique doesn't help me, or at least it hasn't so far, because I'll just work on the beginning forever.

Here's where the concept of the first draft comes into play. The first draft gives us permission to stink. Personally, I think that one should race as quickly as possible through the first draft, indulging oneself without worry, and only later agonize over events, diction, etc. But keep in mind, I am unpublished, so my advice is probably worth about as much as a sermon on Christian fellowship written by Osama bin Laden.

I will gleefully change any detail of my Hero's biography at any point in the book, trying different biographical details the way some people try on shoes, and if something fits I'll go with that for a while, perhaps to discard it later, perhaps to amplify it.

Seeing as I am not an outliner, I don't really write first drafts. I write "exploratory drafts" instead. Following that logic, my second draft becomes the first, the third the second, et cetera.

For me, beginnings are not a problem. I'm fresh, eager, and leaning into the story with a sort of frenetic muscularity.

Now, with all that said, I do believe that there is only one right beginning for every work. Stephen King once likened the act of opening a novel to the act of besieging a castle. There's only one mode of ingress, and all others are doomed to be rebuffed. But false starts inform me, just as unsuccessful attacks informed medieval generals, what the correct way to enter is.

Best of luck to everyone.

popmuze said:

Looks like everybody here is deep into a WIP, or wants to be. My biggest fear is that I'll be 50 pages into something and realize I have to throw it out.

So, how many false starts do you people go through before you feel confident that the thing you're working on will be completed--I mean, edited, polished and thoroughly ready for submission?

How far do you go until you stop--words, days, pages?
How many do a first draft and never a second?
If you have to start over, do you work on the same project or something entirely different?
What if this entirely different thing turns into the same old thing and you have to throw it out too?

Things like that.

Click to expand...

I usually work longer and harder on the opening of the novel than on the rest of the book. The opening is where I do make false starts, and this is as it should be. I'll sometimes throw out and rewrite the first ten to twenty pages several times, but I keep at it until it's right. Once the opening is right, the rest of the novel is a snap.

A first draft is never a false start. Once I finish the first draft, the novel is ready to go, except for a clean up second draft. That's why I work so long and hard on the opening.

I've gotten a good hundred pages in and realized I wasn't feeling the story. I got so far in because I didn't want to not finish it once I'd started. I learned from that to back away quicker if it's not working. I still have a few dead on arrivals.

ClaudiaGray said:

Different people work different ways. I am a big outliner/researcher/planner, and so I almost never have the kind of false start you're describing here -- but I have had many ideas wither on the vine, so to speak. I usually don't start the writing process until I have an extremely detailed full-book outline, and if I can't create that kind of outline for a story, I don't even start writing. So I have as many concepts sputter out as anybody else (probably more than most), just earlier.

Click to expand...

I may not have the full book outline, but I have to have a beginning, middle, and end in mind when I start the first draft; otherwise, I could be typing madly forever and not have anything revisable.

I had tons of false starts in high school; wish I still had them! Throw nothing away; even if it doesn't work today, you might find a place for it tomorrow.

I usually go through about three 10Kish false starts before really getting into something. Definitely not wasted but it can take a while to go from the false starts to the way I really want to start it. It's a good way to figure out the characters and setting and everything before jumping in. And I save them all.