I have a lot of story ideas and incomplete stories that I'm writing and I don't know how to keep up with them because I have so many. Usually I focus on writing just one story mostly but I feel like I should focus on many at a time but it's just too overwhelming. What should I do about this?
-
Basic Writing questions is not a crit forum. All crits belong in Share Your Work
How do I keep up with my incomplete stories?
- Thread starter Pinkarray
- Start date
You aren’t alone in that dilemma. What I do is keep notebooks and / or files of my ideas so that I don’t lose them. Some of those notes are barely outlines, others might be extensive files of dozens of pages. Some of them will never get written, due to there being so many of them and only one of me, and the little blighters love attacking in swarms.
How I manage it is to write as often as I am able, and I always work on the idea that I am most enthused about at any given time. Yes, that means that there is a lot of skipping all over the place, but I do find that when a story is complete then I am very driven towards completing it.
That works for me, but others do things differently.
There are no right or wrong methods, only solutions that will work for you.
Oh, and resign yourself to the fact that you will die without finishing everything that you want to write. It’s just the nature of the beast. Damned hydra thingy!
How I manage it is to write as often as I am able, and I always work on the idea that I am most enthused about at any given time. Yes, that means that there is a lot of skipping all over the place, but I do find that when a story is complete then I am very driven towards completing it.
That works for me, but others do things differently.
There are no right or wrong methods, only solutions that will work for you.
Oh, and resign yourself to the fact that you will die without finishing everything that you want to write. It’s just the nature of the beast. Damned hydra thingy!
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2013
- Messages
- 11,742
- Reaction score
- 10,573
- Location
- In my head
- Website
- thewanderingquille.blogspot.com
I like to pick a few incomplete works and work on them in a batch. "This month, I will work on X, Y, and if there's time, Z." and then I try to complete them in that order. If I get stuck on one, I swap to another. I also try to mix types of stories: one novel, two shorts, and a novelette for example, so I don't have a bunch of long works on the docket. If I'm starting a novel from scratch, I do only that or save it for last on the list. This usually gets me a finished novel and a few shorts.
It's not uncommon to have an Idea File, a folder on your computer (or an actual, physical file or drawer if you write longhand) for the unfinished, the fragmentary, the stray idea jotted down on a cocktail napkin that you haven't gotten around to exploring. If you're working on Story A and you get an inspiration about Story B or an idea that could be Story C, you can stick them in the Idea File so you don't get derailed from Story A; they'll wait for you.
To avoid having that file explode to eat all available space (disk or otherwise), try to check in on it every so often. Do not be afraid to cull those that no longer speak to you. As they say, ideas are a dime a dozen. It's the execution that makes it a story, and not all ideas can or ever will be executed by any given writer.
Now, if it's a habit of yours, collecting story starts and abandoning them when the going gets a little rough and a new shiny idea races across the path like a rabbit in a waistcoat, that comes down to issues of self-discipline and focus and learning how (and when) to stick it out and work through problems.
To avoid having that file explode to eat all available space (disk or otherwise), try to check in on it every so often. Do not be afraid to cull those that no longer speak to you. As they say, ideas are a dime a dozen. It's the execution that makes it a story, and not all ideas can or ever will be executed by any given writer.
Now, if it's a habit of yours, collecting story starts and abandoning them when the going gets a little rough and a new shiny idea races across the path like a rabbit in a waistcoat, that comes down to issues of self-discipline and focus and learning how (and when) to stick it out and work through problems.
Pick one. Put the rest in a drawer. Finish the one you picked. Start the next. Writing is a discipline as much as an art.
Jeff
The discipline is finishing. I have far more abandoned stories than I do completed ones. I just wrote about this exact thing in my blog this weekend in reference to my current WIP (which I call Novel X). I leverage the advice of Stephen King - the good ideas will stick around, even if you don't stop and write them as soon as they pop into your head. If an idea is still there after a few weeks (or even months), then it might be a keeper.
If I get especially excited about an idea, but don't have time to write it, I have a document called Ideas where I'll jot a note down on. But to be honest, I seldom go there to figure out what I'm going to write next.
The whole point here - you don't have to write about every idea. Do this - stack up all of your ideas in one pile, then stack up all of your completed manuscripts right next to it. See which pile fills up first.
If I get especially excited about an idea, but don't have time to write it, I have a document called Ideas where I'll jot a note down on. But to be honest, I seldom go there to figure out what I'm going to write next.
The whole point here - you don't have to write about every idea. Do this - stack up all of your ideas in one pile, then stack up all of your completed manuscripts right next to it. See which pile fills up first.
^^^^^^ So much this.
New ideas are a clever and common procrastination tactic preventing you from reaching the end. The more you finish your stories, the less you'll allow shiny new ideas to derail you. If you must, make a few notes, then set it aside and get back to focusing on the story you want to finish.
If you focus on more than one story at a time, I feel like you wouldn't be doing complete justice to any of your stories. Then there is always the problem of character traits getting mixed up when you are dealing with multiple characters from multiple stories. I find it better to jot down all my story ideas and revisit them once I am done working/discarding the current story that I am writing.
Nerdilydone
Banned
You ever play around with Excel or some analogue thereof? If you just list the stuff you've written in there and the estimated completion level in the next column, that should be able to help.
My advice: Use the drawer WeaselFire mentioned. If you must, and only if you must, make a file to jot down your ideas. You can get to them later. Otherwise, you are likely to have 100s of books in various stages of incomplete, and none will ever see The End.