What Saanen said.
I started and stopped a novel years ago; I knew it was trash through and through. But then I started working on another one, about 2 years ago, and only recently put it on the back burner, as Saanen has done. Why, after working on it for such a long time?
I got it critiqued (by 1 person, lol), and it was pointed out that the story stopped cold in the first chapter. Not a good thing. Now that doesn't mean that I think the story is junk or anything; but I think I needed to hear from someone else what I feared but didn't want to think about: The story needed to be overhauled.
I knew it, deep down. But I kept taking a whack at it, because I was emotionally attached to it. Rather than keep whacking at it, I decided to put it in the proverbial desk drawer and get back to it at a later time. I still like the story, but I think I'm burnt out on it at the moment. I hope to do a complete rewrite at some point, but not right now.
This time, with my current WIP, I decided to do the more organized approach. I had an idea which I sketched out about a year ago, had written a couple of chapters. But I decided to ditch most of the stuff I'd written because I came up with a better idea. I came up with character bios (which I got out of writing book written by an agent named Peter Rubie; no idea if it's still in print or if he's still an agent) using a template from that particular book, wrote an outline.
I've checked off each point in the outline as I've written about it (it's a nice guide, not something written in stone - I've already put one scene ahead of where I was originally going to put it). I'm up to Chapter 7 already, and I only started a few days ago!
Now that I've blathered on
, I guess the gist is, I feel as if this time I will indeed finish a novel because I've taken the time to set it up. I think I'll work better this way, in that I have a general idea of what comes next, plus I decided to have only 1 POV character. I've made it simpler for me, and more streamlined. Of course, what may work for me, may not work for you or anyone else.
Ultimately, time will tell if this puppy sees the light of day. But I'm hopeful.
~Nancy