Sorry to give up, but I'm trunking my completed novel.

Sympathies! Lots & lots of sympathies!

I suffer from having trouble completing novels. I tend to write myself into corners I don't know how to get out of. Because I don't plot enough out in advance. Because if I try to plot far in advance, I obsess on trivial details that I can't possibly answer unless/until I write the characters and find their voice. But, I have trouble writing characters when I don't know what they're doing inside a plot. So, trunk-a-trunk the novels go.

But, on my good days I remind myself that I'm still learning the craft, and learning doesn't happen without trying. People must practice many thousands of hours to become good at playing a violin, or figure-skating, or painting. Somehow, I stupidly assumed that because I was an avid reader, it would be easier to be a writer. HA! If only.

So, immense respect to you for sticking with it. It's so, so discouraging to run a novel aground, been there. But kudos for picking up with another one. You can do it!

starrystorm said:

I'm just hoping this new book has a sound plot. Maybe I'll give the outline to somebody and see if it makes sense first. Obviously, I'm not as great as I thought I was.

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You can always post an outline or synopsis in the Brainstorming Sandbox for help or feedback. I bet there are folks here, including me, willing to help you sort things out.

All the best,
Riv

Sometimes it has to be done. This time last year I was subbing the book I've spent years thinking about and then writing, and I was fairly devastated that no one was the least bit interested in it. I trunked it before exhausting every avenue, I just knew I was wasting my time, and similar to you it was in large part a plot issue.

Anyway, a year later and I love my current book, I'm actually so pleased I was forced to try something else, and I've found a genre I have way more passion for. Letting go can be a great. But, more in retrospect I guess, it was certainly painful at the time, so give yourself time to be sad

It hurts, but all part of leveling up. And you can still love it (I love all my trunked novels. There are a few). But I feel you.

Maybe you can use some scenes or ideas from it in a new novel, or just use the entire effort as a learning experience.

Ah no. Is there nothing you can salvage from it at all? I do know this feeling. I trunked my first novel. Sigh. Still, though, onwards and upwards!

What does it mean to "trunk" a novel?

maggiee19 said:

What does it mean to "trunk" a novel?

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Opening a metaphorical trunk, dropping the manuscript in, and walking away.

starrystorm said:

I always knew my plot was flawed. It had changed so many times and even on my final drafts, I still was learning what the plot was. Panicking, I sent it out to betas, hoping that one of them would discover the plot for me. They didn't. In fact, my characters and voice were weak too. I've spent the last 2 hours trying to figure out how to save my novel. But I can't. There's no plot and OH GOD WHY DIDN'T I GIVE UP 2 YEARS EARLIER?! I knew it was flawed, why didn't I just admit it to myself? But at least it's trunked now. Out of sight, out of mind.

Anyway, it hurts but I think I have another great idea I can work on. One with a clearer plot. But I still don't know how I'll fix my characters and voice. I thought they were my finest writing abilities.

The sickly ironic thing is, I was putting on a skit about my characters yesterday to my sister who loved it.

I'm just hoping this new book has a sound plot. Maybe I'll give the outline to somebody and see if it makes sense first. Obviously, I'm not as great as I thought I was.

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I've beta'd. Let me read it before you give up. PM me.

Some of my characters have done their best work in a trunk. They've turned up again in much better novels.

Oh, I hear you on the pain of trunking something. I did that with my first beastly attempt at an epic fantasy that clocked in at 280K...and contained every fantasy trope and cliche known to man (unbeknownst to me at the time because this was before I hopped on AW).

It's still sitting in the trunk, but I have a little "someday" sticky note on it - the characters are good and I want to return to it. I'll just basically have to tear it apart and piece it into something new.

But hey - YOU FINISHED A NOVEL!!! Woot!!! This means you know you can do it, and you can do it again. All the hugs and I have faith in you.

The good thing about writing is it's okay to write something you aren't satisfied with because writing is a forward-motion action.

It isn't always easy to start project two, especially if project one didn't turn out the way you had hoped. But lots of writers have similar experiences and the important thing is, it doesn't stop them. Put it in the trunk and start thinking about where you want to go next.

starrystorm said:

Obviously, I'm not as great as I thought I was.

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Just a quick note that you are not the sum of your novel draft's parts. You *might* be great, or might not, who knows, but novels are big tangled things that are hard to make work...not every one of them is going to get there, for one reason or another. It's not exactly ideal, but it's ok. It happens.

How many published authors have the odd trunked novel in the attic?

Even though this one was a misfire, I would suggest that it wasn't wasted effort. We learn by doing and there is the whole discipline thing of settling down to put words on the page. You completed a ms. Many don't. You deserve a pat on the back.

@starrystorm

I just want you to know that you are an amazing writer and person (starrystorm and I know each other in real life). I just want you to know that you were the one who inspired me to write. Yes, you really did and I want to thank you for that. Writing has shaped my life for the better and has dragged my out of some hard times. I know trunking a book is difficult (I've trunked some that I loved) but I managed to save a few characters from the fire and I still love them like I did before. But, it took some time of being trunked before I could even face them again.

I just hope you are not too discouraged by this event. It's okay to be sad, though. Just don't beat yourself up.

I'll always cheer you on, my friend.

-- The Second Moon

Wanted to add my voice to the You Are Not Alone chorus. I trunked a novel, but it was one I had to write to get some ideas out. I've used bits and pieces of character in other books, but I've also looked at what I did wrong in that book and did it right in the next ones. I may never have shared it with the world, but it was a critical ancestor of the books I did share.

Nothing you write is ever wasted, whether you expose it to the world or not. It's all part of where you grow and what you build on.

Oh, and you are as great as you think you are, because you're still going. So go, you!

Pretty much every writer has at least one trunked book.

Move on to the next one, and use what you've learned.

Hey. Everyone trunks novels. Big-name, small-name, unpublished.

I trunked a novel when I was fifteen (it was BAD) and took it up again ten years later. Maybe you'll get to come back to those characters you love.

I know it feels weird when you give up on something you've loved so long. But the novel is not YOU. The novel is something you made, and right now you need to be away from it for awhile, if that's your gut. I know you feel low but you've learned a ton through writing it and that hasn't been a waste of time. Really.

Just want to affirm the stuff people have wrote earlier about using this material later. I trunked my first trilogy. It was too autobiographical in places and contained a lot of material about being an abuse survivor. But now I have that stuff to work into another trilogy, one with more of a theme than, yes, an abuse survivor can have a happy adult life, but they've got to be careful not to screw up along the way. Now I can mix all that into traveling to faerie and griffins and harpies and stuff.

And like winks said above, you've written a novel. Now you know you can do it again. Just because you didn't end up with a publishable product doesn't mean that the attempt didn't count. You learned stuff along the way. That matters. : )

Here's what you take away from this:

Not one minute of your time and effort have been wasted. You are learning and honing your craft.

Writing is like learning how to play the piano. The more you practice, the better you get. Even Mozart hit a few klinker notes when he started out.

I had a spot where I should have been working on a book and instead spent months on a fan fiction story that was driving me crazy. I used up a ream of paper, felt guilty for not working on my "real" writing, and obsessively scribbled on a story no one would ever see.

Finally, FINALLY, I put "the end" on that fic, let it go, and went back (late now) to the book.

What a shock, the book needed a complete rewrite. It was sort of okay, but could be much better. I rewrote it, much to the annoyance of my editor. Then I rewrote the next book.

It seems that all the time I thought I'd wasted on the fic was the practice I needed to get better at my craft.

Tht's what's happened here for you. Don't sweat it, put it away, let it go, and you'll find your next book is going to be awesome because of the skills you honed on this one.

"You do not fail! You either succeed or you learn!"

~ I thought it was my quote for a while, but now I've seen it running around the webs attributed to different people.

The important thing, is that it's true. Mourn the loss in your own way, but keep the lessons it taught.

What Gillhoughly said. Sometimes, letting yourself let go of a novel permits you to grow as a writer: a new project offers new challenges that will help you learn much more than clinging to your (comfortable) old story.

It might be better to let it lie fallow for now, and come back to it after you've got a few more books under your belt so that you can apply what you've learned from writing them... just sayin'.

Marissa, who did that with the utter stinker that was her very first book.