Giving Up...

the novel I'm currently wrapping up sprung out of a scrapped work. The reason I abandoned the original is that it was shooting off in ten different directions and I really didn't seem to be getting any closer to where I wanted to be after each successive chapter. The work also had a fundamental flaw in it that just didn't seem fixable. Just as I was about to abandon it for good, though, I grudgingly acknowledged that one of the chapters was good. So I scrapped everything else and built my current work around that. // ps Nothing wrong with novellas. Some of the finest works in literature fall under this category, like The Old Man And the Sea, and The Pearl. Gotta confess though that I am caught up on word counts, too. I think some of my shorter stuff suffers as a result.

Tough questions, KTC. I'll first ask you how long are those stories of yours? And why are you trying to flesh them out? To novel size? Were you originally shooting for novel-length works?

I'm pretty much in the same boat, having started a thriller that I'm now 20,000 words into. It has NO plot. Great, memorable characters, but no plot outline. I'm just scraping along at about 5,000 words a week, which is really low output for me. This book scares me so badly because it is so close to a female Iron Man--I kid you not. It's either a comic book or graphic novel, or...a straight up and serious Clancy-type treatment. No middle of the road--it has to define itself. Espionage and political intrigue is not my cup of tea--I know zilch about the subject matter. Yet I snail drag on, attempting to fool myself.

Remember that familiarity breeds contempt with your own writing. It will always looks fresh and exciting in another's eyes. Trust me on that. The more time you spend with it thrashing it out, the more despondent you become, it seems.

I wouldn't give up on them so much as I would postpone them, if I were you.

Tri

No, no, no. Please don't give up. Put them away and take a break. Who cares how long for, years even.
What do I know. Guess I just can't stand the thought of all that hard work going in the bin.

x

anis said:

the novel I'm currently wrapping up sprung out of a scrapped work. .... Just as I was about to abandon it for good, though, I grudgingly acknowledged that one of the chapters was good. So I scrapped everything else and built my current work around that.

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My current MG novel is just that: a long ago almost-finished MG novel that didn't work. I took a portion of it to use in this new ms. and it fits perfectly.

You're allowed to abandon the writing, just don't delete it, even if you have to save it to a thumb drive labeled "Worst Writing Ever." Some day you might reread it and use it as a springboard for something else.

Don't ever give up, follow Debs advice. Put it away for awhile. Maybe someday in the not too distant future you'll dust it off again and finally have an idea where to go with it.

As an aside, the reason why I emphasize not deleting any work or throwing the hard copy away, is that one time on television, a writer who's first book was climbing the charts on the NY Times best seller list, was being interviewed. Sitting next to her was a famous author. The soon-to-be-best selling author mentioned that she had thrown away her previous ms. and deleted anything to do with it. She said it was garbage. The famous author looked stunned and said that she kept everything, even if the hardcopies had to be stored in plastic boxes in the attic. Said it was where her new ideas for stories came from.

It just bothered me so much that this writer casually threw work away, that I mention it whenever and wherever I can.

Well, I'm not going to throw it away, but I have stopped trying to save a current WIP for the time being. 62K+ words into a mystery/thriller and I've reached the point where the plot dove into such a deep hole that I can see no way to get it out.

What I have been doing once the fervor for that waned is to start on an outline for an idea that's been floating around in my head for some time. The outline is almost complete, and the most amazing thing is that I've had the glimmer of a way to ressurect the mystery/thriller. Not enough of an idea to abandon the outline, but a glimmer of hope.

I don't throw anything I've written away. I have CD's, hard copies, a back-up external disk full of stuff that may never see the light of day.

I think Gogol threw the sequel to Dead Souls into his fireplace. Now there was a loss --to all.

I abandon writing projects in the same way I occasionally abandon sewing projects. Sometimes, it's just not working and all the sudden I'm sick to death of looking at the fabric. Oddly enough, abandoned writing projects go the same place abandoned sewing projects go--the scrap bag. To be cannibalized for other projects.

I've temporarily given up on pieces that didn't sell. Down the road, I may dust them off, update and give them another turn, but if now is not the time, then it's not and my writing time can be better spent on other writing. And sure, there are other factors. The market for a piece may be saturated, something too similar may have splashed, the current event may become passe...it's ok, if you're sure it's not the right time for th epiece, just set it aside and put your efforts elsewhere.

I sometimes say I've given up on a story, but I never like anything to be 100% final. No matter how lousy something of mine is there is ALWAYS the tiniest bit of potential that I could return to it someday, when in the right mood, and do something good with it. I've done this before. In the meantime I work on more promising things and just say these other items are on "indefinite hiatus."

Even my silly childhood stories that make me nearly die of shame when looking at them now. I actually did try reviving one some years back. I got through only one chapter, but I showed myself it could be done. It wouldn't be the same sort of story I used to write, no, because my attitude and style have changed so much (the new chapter was rather sarcastic in its humor whereas my childhood humor was more...well, childlike), but it could still be a story. Maybe someday. Maybe not, but I won't completely shut the door on anything. Not even on my blatant Watership Down ripoff or my alien abduction psychological drama that derailed into government conspiracy coverup drek. I'd just need to refocus the story rather than abandon it.

That's just me though. I'm also not answering from a publication standpoint, just from wanting to write and share with others.

The timing of this post is kind of funny because lately I've been obsessing over a story of mine that's been on "indefinite hiatus" for a while now!

I stop working on stories when I'm no longer empassioned by them. Since I'm not published and not under contract, it's a privilege I invoke as often as I want to. I figure if I don't want to spend time with the story, who else is going to? We all have better things to do with our time and energy.

What that means is that I move the project folder from the active writing folder to the non-active writing folder, put all the hard copy notes in a binder and tuck them away in my closet and mentally throw all the ideas back into the pot on the back burner to simmer again. In many decades of writing, I've yet to pull a book back out and finish it. The basic ideas have reformatted themselves into something else, but that's an entirely new and different project and not just resurrecting the old one.

Not every idea is worth developing into a full novel, IMHO. Sometimes I recognize that fact early on, sometimes I don't. Just part of the process.

So far, I haven't completely given up on anything.

No, wait, that's not true.

I gave up querying on my first completed manuscript because I wasn't getting any bites, and I thought I had the best query letter I could create, and I had other ideas I wanted to get started on. I chalked that first book up to practice, and moved on to a second.

I'm technically now, in the beginning stages of my 4th. The 2nd I'm querying, and the 3rd I've decided to shelve for now. I really like it, but I am currently...in the mood to work on the 4th instead. It's something I need to write right now, due to space and time and mood and emotions and everything else going on in my life, if that makes sense.

I guess if I go way back before my 1st, I gave up many times. I'd get partway through something and throw the whole thing out because for some reason, what I had originally thought was so great I suddenly realized REALLY sucked. So I'd toss it and start over without any kind of plan.

I'd like to say I've grown a bit, in my writing. Not just in my actual writing but also in the way I go about planning. I'm not a timeliner, but I like to know my characters before I get started.

Wow! sorry, I went way off topic! I will end this post...

Now.

KTC said:

I've decided to give up on a couple of my stories. I don't know how everybody else decides when it is time to give up and move on. For me, these two stories have been completed for some time now. I've edited repeatedly. I've attempted to bump up the word count repeatedly on both--to no avail. I've decided that I have to reach for a higher word count or I shouldn't even bother writing. I am stuck with 2 novellas and I am unable to make anything more of them. SO--I'm finally throwing in the towel on both.

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Personally, I'm a bit stubborn and don't give up on anything - unless I know it's complete crap and then I take the good parts and store them away for later use. However, if it's something I feel good about, then there's a reason I started writing it in the first place. I keep going until I figure it out. Sometimes I take a break and work on something else, sometimes I just plow right through.

In your case, I'm wondering if maybe it's possible to find a connecting theme between the two stories and write a few more with the same underlying theme, then put together a novel of short stories. I don't know what your writing goals are specifically, but I bet you can still use the work. It's probably best to sit on them a month or two and work on something else. When you revisit the two works, you may be able to figure out what direction you want to go. But, I agree with the others, don't scrap it just yet.

Yes, I have a story graveyard littered with the bones of stories that just never made it. I've got one I"m struggling with now. It comes back from magazines each time with the same request: Rewrite and resubmit. I've rewritten the dang thing so many times that I don't know if I can do it one more time.

You've been at this a while, Kevin. Trust your gut. If the story isn't right, consign it to the graveyard. Maybe look at it again in the future to see if it can be reanimated. If it can't don't beat yourself up over it. Just keep on with your new projects.

Off the top of my head, I'd say that most of the documents in my prose folder are unfinished short stories.

When it comes to short stories, I often get a really good title or initial idea in mind, but I can't figure out a satisfactory resolution to the conflict. I tend to ask a "what if" question that feeds the start of the story. When I lose the drive to write the story, I just drop it. Sometimes I come back a week later, or a month later, and finish or revise it. I never delete, however, because even if I haven't picked it up again yet, I may still do so one day. Or perhaps I can use an idea from the story in a future story or novel.

Last year I finished a novel that began, in a very different form, several years ago. However, it still doesn't seem ready to be published--it still needs revisions, at least another draft, maybe two. I have been tinkering with the opening for half a year now, and I'm still not satisfied.

Since then I've had an idea for a different novel, and I've begun writing that. I shall shelve my other novel for now and work on this one. I'm a new, young writer by any standard, and as others have pointed out, it can take several novels before one's writing skill gets to the point where the novel's ready for publication.

I have a couple of stories that I've had to give up on. I've given up on them about 7 times each. Every time I say it's the last time, yet I keep going back. I love those stories. I want them to have a life outside the walls of my hard drive. Every few months I get really pumped up about this rewrite/submission being the one, but once again they fail, and once again I put them away "for good".

I don't have this pattern with other work, just these two danged stories.

I'm resting my currently WIP novel. I'm about 33,000 words in and the central conflict isn't developing. I've got great characters, a great setting and then *shrugs*.

I'm treating it like meat just off the grill. You have to let it rest before you can cut into it.

Oh, and the fact that I came up with a new idea while counting sheep a few weeks ago and have been furiously researching it doesn't help.

Interesting question, Kevin, and timely for me. I've been going through something similar the last couple of weeks.

Out of everything I have that isn't completed -- the huge variety of WIPs that I plan to complete one day -- there's one I've realized I'm just not going to finish.

It was an early novel. Love most of the concepts I created. But the characters are, I realize, far too two-dimensional. There's a reason for it -- this came out of a roleplaying game I'd created and ended up writing a story around. That in and of itself isn't the problem. But I don't care about my good guys, and only a couple of my bad guys are interesting to me any more.

But the IDEAS and situations I came up with -- I love those. And I refuse to give them up.

So, this particular novel/series idea is being used for parts. Some of the concepts going into several of my current WIPs. (Title over here, that character over there, this accepted norm over this way, and so on.) I like them better in these new ones than I ever did in the original.

It was a hard decision -- I'm firmly of the "you can always fix it" mindset. But I have so many story ideas and so many WIPs, I don't need to cling to one that I know in my gut isn't going to do what I want it to do.

In one sense it hurts, because I really enjoyed this one at the time. But when I think of all my other ideas and WIPs, they still excite me -- I WANT to get them done. This one? Doesn't. What I care about seeing through to the end is something that's already working better my current, active WIPs.

So, my suggestion is stick with your gut and harvest what you want from it for other works.

KTC, I don't think you can actually "bury" stuff you feel good about. Put it aside, sure, but leave it somewhere you can get at later.

Ten years ago I began a novel which got relegated to the back of a drawer because it was messed up for various reasons. Since then, I took it out a couple of times and tried to re-work it, but with no success. BUT, this book wouldn't let me rest, and a few months ago I went back to it and completed it. Guess what, ten years after I began this book, it got me a London agent. Whether or not he ever gets us a publishing deal remains to be seen, but I did finish it!

As debs said: " No, no, no. Please don't give up. Put them away and take a break. Who cares how long for, years even." As others have said, put it aside for now. This is not a case of giving up, it's a case of knowing when to step back, leave it on the back-burner and move on to other things.

Triceretops, I know that feeling. I've recently written a novel that scared me. It was heavier than anything I've attempted before and at times I felt way out of my depth. Right or wrong, I had to finish it.

So, I think all the posters here have answered the question: "What are you giving up on? And why?"

We don't give up, do we guys? We - including you, KTC, believe in ourselves.

KTC said:

I am stuck with 2 novellas and I am unable to make anything more of them.

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I don't understand this. Why not publish them as novellas? Not every piece of writing has to be a full-length novel.

What she said.

Maybe they were never meant to be anything more than novellas. I have a couple 20k and 30k stories that belong at that length. No more. No less. Not the most marketable move, I know. Probably a tough sell. But there's nothing wrong with novellas if that's what the story wants to be.