Howdy howdy, squiders. Let’s continue with our catch-up, shall we?
July’s prompt is: When to give up on a novel/story. Do you ever?
The short answer is: yes. Yes, I do.
But I really, really don’t like to.
Since I started writing seriously in 2006, I have started many, many stories of varying types. Short stories, novels, novellas. One musical that really never made it anywhere. A couple of serial stories. (Speaking of which, Part 3 of Across Worlds with You went live yesterday.) One screenplay. A couple of children’s books. A whole series of nonfiction books.
Anyway, you get the point.
I tend to write short stories in a single sitting, but I normally outline the story in a different session before I start writing. If I can’t get the outline to work, I don’t write it. I guess that’s true across the board, actually. It’s very telling if you can’t get the basic shape of the story.
Not to say that having a complete outline will save you, in the end. In most cases, I can get to the end of a draft if I’ve outlined (and is partially why I outline, after too many stories where I had to pivot in the middle because I didn’t think things through). But not always. If you guys remember, I spent most of…2020? on that changeling novel that ended up not working at all. That was really the first time that my process had failed me, where I couldn’t get the story to fit what it needed to be.
Writing can be awful, tedious, frustrating, and depressing. (Not always! I’ve had drafts that I floated through, easy as pie.) That doesn’t necessarily mean there is something wrong with the story itself. Sometimes you can’t make time, or can’t focus, or any number of things that don’t have anything to do with a story’s viability. And sometimes a story isn’t working for you personally, not because anything is wrong with it in general.
(My mother asked me to ghostwrite a middle grade historical mystery for her, once, and I couldn’t get through it. I am not a fan of historical fiction and it turns out that no amount of money is worth it to me to write something that I dislike. Plus I didn’t–and still don’t–have experience with MG or historical fiction.)
I think over time you gain an instinct as to whether something is wrong with the story or with your process (or life generally getting in the way). I suspect all stories are ultimately fixable. But are you willing to put in the time? The effort? Is it worth it to you to fight with it to make it work?
That varies person to person and story to story. And it’s okay if the answer is no.
Probably won’t see you until next week, squiders. Happy August!
