Is my novel dead if I take a break from writing it for a few months?

shadow2

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I'm at about 52,000 words (I suspect it is going to end up around 80 to 90,000) but then I ran out of summer holidays. I spent a long time on character and plot development, so I am set up super well to finish it and I know exactly what needs to be written.

I'm worried I'm never going to finish it, though... that by the time I get back to it in a few months I'm going to want to write something else. I've never spent more than 4 months on a novel before, so this is unfamiliar territory. Anyone have wisdom on this? Is my novel dead :cry: or is there (realistically) hope?
 

Filigree

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Keep going if you want, Shadow. If you feel burned out, take notes on where you want the story to go, save them, and put the mms aside for a while. Nothing dishonorable in a 'trunked' book, especially if you need to take a hiatus. It's only a lost cause if you delete it!

I'm an artist and a manufacturing specialist, in addition to being a writer. I usually have between 15 and 20 'active projects' between art, writing, and career at any one time. If I get bored with one shiny object, I jump to another, then back. Since I have the mental quirk that whatever project in front of me is The Most Important Thing Ever, that helps keep me focused on the task at hand...until I have to switch to a new shiny.

Taking a break can work wonders for my creativity. I stalled out my original fiction for ten years (because art and career needed my full attention). When I got back into writing, it felt like I'd leveled up in a video game. The minor and major victories I found in non-writing areas of my life helped my confidence later in writing.

The 103K fantasy book I just published this August started life as a 6K short story in the late nineties.

Don't be afraid to take breaks, but don't shirk pushing yourself to write when you can. A written piece can be revised or mined for parts; something unwritten remains as personal vaporware, and can slip away from your memory.
 

insolentlad

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Much in agreement with Filigree (and work similarly). I stopped twice in the course of writing my recent 'serious' mainstream novel to turn out lighter fantasies. But I came back each time and finished. I think it was better for the breaks; getting away from it let me come back with new energy and ideas. Just don't take so long you don't remember what you wanted to say!
 

Maggie Maxwell

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HAHAHHAHAAH!

Dead after a few months!!

Aahahahahahahah!!!

*wipes tears*

A novel is never dead until you decide it's dead. Is it hard to come back after a long break? Oh, absolutely. And depending on how long the break is and how much work you've put into improving your craft, you may see that the whole thing needs reworking as you've improved as a writer, but it is still not dead. You just need to figure out what your best method for jumping back in is.

For me, I use every other year of NaNoWriMo or Camps as a "finish something in progress" project. That means literal years between starting a project and finishing it, but they get finished. I do not have a single finished novel that hasn't taken at least two years between start and writing The End, writing in two one-month batches because NaNo is my best motivator. But I have finished novels. You're gonna be fine. Even if something else grabs you, you still have the plans for the rest of the WIP. They'll still be there when you're ready and able to go back to it, whenever that is. :)
 

KBooks

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Nah. Not dead. If I get to a frustrating point with one project, or real life throws me a roadblock for a while, I just come back to the manuscript when I can. Sometimes that time off when your subconscious can be percolating new ideas can be helpful!
 

BethS

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It's only dead if you never go back to it. But that's what you're afraid of, I take it? That you won't go back?

The answer is to not stop. Maybe going forward you won't have as much free time to write as you had over the summer, but setting aside even a small block of time to write every day or every week will keep up the momentum and prevent you from getting rusty. And you'll make progress, even if it's not as fast as you like. What's to lose?
 

Snowstorm

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Your novel won't be dead, only in hibernation. Others upthread gave you great advice and insight. In fact, taking a break from it has a lot of benefits. For one, your stress caused by trying to finish the work is gone. Second, you'll have fresh and better ideas for direction, scenes, or rewriting pop into your head. Write them all down for later. Third, when you decide you're ready to work on it again, you'll be amazed at the energy and fresh mind will invigorate yourself to press on.

Allow yourself the gift of a break. You and your novel will be the better for it.
 

CindyB

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I just picked up my first draft from 10 years ago and started again. It's never too late.
 

rgroberts

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I left one novel alone for 3+ years before coming back to it and finishing it. Even worse, I only needed to write the ending; the rest was already done! But real life got in the way and I didn't have writing time, so it fell by the wayside. Now I've edited the sucker and am shopping for agents. It's definitely never too late.
 

Redredrose

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I picked up my novel after having not written anything in it for a year-and-a-half. What I found was that I quickly moved into a chapter I had only loosely outlined. The whole scene had been dancing in my head for a day, and I dropped everything and wrote like a demon--all through the night. After catching up on sleep, I went back through the earlier chapters and was able to stream through them, catching the plot holes, nixing the boring repetitions. I couldn't possibly have done those things a year-and-a-half earlier. I'm in agreement with others on this thread: Your novel is only dead when you clearly and definitively determine it's dead.
 

mselephant2015

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No, not dead.

I assume by use of the words 'summer holidays' that you're either a parent or still within the school system? I sympathise with both ;) Either way, DO NOT FRET. I took a year off from one of my WIPs, due to pregnancy, picked it up after the baby was born and carried on. Progress was a little slow to start but I soon fell back in. If you can carry on and you are happy to carry on, then do. I'm not one of these who believe you MUST write every day (sorry Stephen King), because I fail miserably on that part, but I do find a little a day keeps it fresh in the mind. But I do also consider thinking over the story, reading over past chapters and plotting future ones to still be part of the writing process, too. After all, you're still in 'your world' after all.
However if it isn't possible for you to write right now, don't fret. It won't die and it'll be there waiting for you for you next have the time :).
 

WeaselFire

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It's probably dead. Might as well give up. Just because Margaret Mitchell or J. R. R. Tolkien took forever to write their books doesn't mean it works out.

Take a break if you need, write it in three weeks if that's what you need.

Jeff
 

Carl L Sanders

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It's only dead if you bury it(under a Full Moon, to make certain; if under a New Moon, it might take root.)
I laid off my current novel-in-progress in disgust with the Milieu (11th Century Europe) in which it is set, for a full year. After completing another project, I returned and the interval had allowed the dust to settle in my mind and I was able to begin with a fresh approach. As of this morning, 162,800 words of a projected 180,000.

Best of Fortune in your Project.
 

maggiee19

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In my opinion, no, it's not dead. One of my current WIP's, I hadn't worked on it in four years. I started writing it, stopped at 21,200 words, and started writing it again this past May. It's currently at almost 75,000 words. Your novel dies when it's finished, and if you keep creating scenes with those characters in your mind, and write those scenes down, it never dies.
 

blacbird

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I'm worried I'm never going to finish it, though... that by the time I get back to it in a few months

I don't understand. What forces you to take "a few months" away from writing on it?

I do most of my writing during free time in evenings, weekends, etc. An hour here, an hour there, maybe a couple of hours over here. What about your schedule doesn't permit that kind of thing?

caw
 

shadow2

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I don't understand. What forces you to take "a few months" away from writing on it?

I do most of my writing during free time in evenings, weekends, etc. An hour here, an hour there, maybe a couple of hours over here. What about your schedule doesn't permit that kind of thing?

caw

Ha, it's just how I know my university's terms work out - I will have no free time in October and November. Whereas in the summer, writing is one of my main focuses.

Thanks so much for all the suggestions and input guys! It's so good to know that other people sometimes don't write continuously and still finish their books :D. I had no idea how long it takes most people to write novels, so maybe a longer writing period will be something new for me to try. I suspect it might actually make the writing better, as people have said, to be refreshed and come at it with new ideas and understandings.
 

RoyalFool

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Everyone is different, so we can only speak from our own experiences. But I have been writing one story for over a year now, and have taken quite a few breaks. I then had to start again because the way I had planned it the first time the plot came to a grinding halt.

However, I am now 10,000 words into the second version of the story. I started it some months ago, then had a break while I had other things going in my life, and only now, after about three months have I come back to it and am working on it each day again.

But, if you come back to it and you have no impetus for it, don't delete it, leave it there. You might find that you'll pick it up again in a year.

Not quite the same, but I've had books I've bought and then not read for nearly five years because the time wasn't right for that book. I've read lots of others in the meantime, so it wasn't as if I was off reading. Then when I did read the book I thoroughly enjoyed it.
 

kkbe

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Your novel won't be dead, only in hibernation.

Allow yourself the gift of a break. You and your novel will be the better for it.
I like this idea very much, esp. as I find myself in a boat similar to that of the o.p.

Folks here have offered lots of good ideas for you, Shadow--different and productive ways to approach your dilemma. But even if you never write another word in your WIP, nothing can take away from you what you've already accomplished. You've written a nice little chunk of your story and the beauty is, it will be waiting for you, should you decide to come back to it.

For better or worse,* it's not going anywhere.


*Instead of 'For better or worse,' perhaps I should've written Like a good friend.
But Like a bad case of the clap may have been more apropos...

:)
 
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Alina H.

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Hey. I am a teenager, trying to get my ideas through by my writing. I have been writing a novel for a long time now. But, I am so confused on to how to make it flow. I need to know how to keep up with the flow. It gets overwhelming sometimes. I can't seem to catch a thought and before I know it, my thoughts overflow and destroy the entire idea, to begin with. Since this advice of yours sounds so sincere to Shadow, I was wondering if you could help me out as well.
 

mselephant2015

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Hey. I am a teenager, trying to get my ideas through by my writing. I have been writing a novel for a long time now. But, I am so confused on to how to make it flow. I need to know how to keep up with the flow. It gets overwhelming sometimes. I can't seem to catch a thought and before I know it, my thoughts overflow and destroy the entire idea, to begin with. Since this advice of yours sounds so sincere to Shadow, I was wondering if you could help me out as well.

My only advice is this; let the thoughts roll. Sometimes they do take over and you end up with a different idea to the one you stared with and that can be good. For example, my first book was supposed to be about a boy who died and his new girlfriend struggling to feel like she knew him as well as his childhood sweetheart. It's now a book about two very good friends helping with one another with depression and aspirations. Completely different - only the characters are the same. Both still alive, too. But those thoughts completely destroyed my original idea and I much prefer what I've ended up with now.
 

gshevlin

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If you are taking a break from writing a novel, that does not necessarily mean anything in terms of the final outcome.
I have taken breaks from all of my (concurrent) book projects. When I am writing fiction, I have realized that I cannot write useful content unless the characters are talking to me. If they are not talking to me, I either organize content (and there is always something to do on the organization front, especially, if, like me, you are working on two pentalogies), or I work on another project.
The worst thing you can do, IMHO, is to try and force content out when your mind is not behind it. I wrote an entire chapter several months ago (3000 words) when the characters in the chapter were not speaking to me. I went back a week later, and after reading the entire chapter, I kept the first paragraph and binned the rest. The content was simply, not very good.
I also have one or more book projects that are what i term scratchpads - places where I try out stuff. Most of that scratchpad material is not going to make it in that form, but lots of ideas for characters and scenarios from the scratchpads are making it into the pentalogies.
NOTE - Some of what I said does apply to non-fiction, especially the organizing part, but not all of it.
 

gshevlin

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What I forgot to say is that if you take a break, it gets you outside of the goldfish bowl. I assembled a first compile of the first book in one of my pentalogies, and when I went back after 2 weeks and read it as if I were a new reader, I spotted a whole pile of typos, and plot loose ends that needed to be addressed. Detachment can be your friend.
 

Sonsofthepharaohs

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Book 1 of my ancient Egyptian story took 12 years to finish - it started out as a 300k fanfic written and posted chapter by chapter over a number of years, then based on reader feedback I divided it into a trilogy, rewrote it as original fiction and submitted book 1 to an agent. On her advice I turned the main plot into a sub-plot and created a brand new main plot to turn it into a much bigger story. That outline got me repped by another agent, and then it took me 4 years to totally rewrite the thing, only to not be successful at finding a publisher. So I decided to self publish, but not until I'd written books 2 and 3 as well. Except the setback of not finding a publisher really knocked the stuffing out of my writing muse, and she went into hiding for 3 years. Now she's cautiously reappeared, and I'll be using NaNo next month to try and get book 2 off the ground.

So, 15 years since I started this monster, and I'm STILL determined to finish it. Never say die :)
 
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