Going to try and answer each post, so forgive the length of this and I am sure some of my word choices might trigger the censor in the program.
Also thanks all for your thoughts.
I sympathise and can empathise as I think I’m in the thick of my ‘nearly breaking me’ novel.
(Incidentally, I like the sound of your flashback structuring.)
With help from people here on Chrons, particularly TJ, HB, Dan, Peat, VB, TDZ, mouse, The Boss, and ratsy, I’ve managed to work through each challenge as it has come. I’m bloody minded about not letting things beat me, which I detect in your post, too.
My point is that this place has been a great support system; PMs and emails have saved my backside many, many times.
Sometimes it’s a case of sharing and someone liking the excerpt, sometimes it’s just a case of brainstorming by email.
So my advice is stick at it but don't put a timescale on it, especially if you can work on 2 projects at a time.
You’ve already finished 2 novels so that should help, too.
pH
Phyrebrat, the flashback structuring is one I have been toying with for a long time. If it works in a longer form, (i.e. a chapter here, chapter there, sort of thing, as in the Zombie WIP) I want to use it in shorter sections, maybe even down to a longish paragraph structure, and to hell with all the rules of what you should do.
I am not very good at sharing WIP's I find that unless I have at least the whole story down in a rough first draft before I share anything, I start re-writing things too soon, without the story setting in my mind. In honesty I get confused and lost.
Finished a lot more than two. Oracle and Hand of Glory were my 4th and 5th books. The other 3, are finished crap, but finished, even if they go no further.
In my experience, it does sound like you'd be better off burying it. Also in my experience, I'm not sure you'll be able to.
That's what I think as well. Damned if I do and damned if I don't.
I find it very hard to fix something very broken.
Not the story that is/was broke, it was me for a long time. Something in me snapped with regards to writing during the time I was working on this.
I have several, nowhere near as grim as your experience.
One immediately sprang to mind as I read your post - the first time I wrote it, it just didn't work, but the story itself just wouldn't go away. So I started again, and gave up. And again, and gave up...
I don't know how many rounds I went, but a couple of years back I tried again with no particular expectations - very much at the level of 'bored now, need something to do' and I took a poke at it. Now it works. (Whether anyone would want to publish it is another matter.)
Somewhere, lurking on a hard-drive (currently around my knee-level) is an epic fantasy trilogy I wrote years and years ago. It's a wonderful, fun story and really the only thing wrong with it is the writing - along with the plotting, too many POVs etc, but really the killer is the writing itself. I can't even put a finger on what's wrong with it, but it is definitely wrong. When I came to do the first pass of editing, my partner started reading and almost literally said 'do I have to?' So, I started going through to clean it up first... and did the equivalent of asking myself, 'do I have to?' It got shelved, but a few years later I had an idea and started re-writing from scratch - not even looking at the original MS. That seemed to be going well until it stalled for some reason. The last time I went back and looked at that second pass, I thought the story was going well, but there was just something wrong with the writing, if only I could put my finger on the problem...
Overall, I recommend burying them in a shallow grave, marked with a stone inscribed with big letters I'll be back. That way you can keep an eye on them, do flowers on a suitable anniversary, or a ring of salt depending.
I think we all have our, "epic fantasy", lurking on our hard drives. I know I do, a 500,000 word monster which would make 3 books easily. That story doesn't bother me, nor do the dozens of half started ideas for novels and short stories. Just this one does and it breaks through the ring of salt quite often.
Sue, I'd probably let it go personally, but do what feels right for you. We as writers have to be able to let things be trunked. Not everything will work as we hoped it to. I say start something new, fresh, and fun and make writing something you are excited to be doing, not forcing yourself to beat that old manuscript that leaves you remembering the negative emotions of the time.
I am hoping to start something new, and it won't be fantasy, SF or horror (maybe a dash, but not supernatural in the accepted terms, more the power of the past over the present sort of thing.) But the crunch thing is, if I leave this WIP I do feel as if by doing that I have let the negative emotions and memories win. I haven't shown myself that I have changed and accepted the past, rather than wallowing in it and allowing it to rule me. (hence the ideas swirling of late with regards to the new idea.)
I have several that ran aground and I may or may not return to. I have finished books, so I don't feel like a total failure if I stop and say "this is so not working for me" and quit. I think one part of the writer's experience is learning what you are rewarded by writing. What really sings for you. Not all plots and styles work for all people. At the moment my focus is outwards - trying new ways and new stuff. Also learning my weaknesses - and working on ways to avoid my weaknesses or strengthen up my performance. But mostly its avoidance.
Or what Ratsy just said.
Avoidance I have come to believe, stores up problems that do in time come back and bite you in the bum. Even if it is just regret at stopping too early.
I had two books finished, of what I'd outlined as a seven-book series, before abandoning it because the market became overly flooded with the topic. (If you guessed vampires, you're right).
I still think my take on the subject is quite unique, and I hope to return to it at some point - when every other novel published doesn't include vampires.
Actually I think vampires will never go out of fashion, the same with Zombies. People have been saying they will for years and it hasn't happened yet.
First off, I believe there's no problem with sending your personal guinea pigs something a bit on the rough side, particularly if they know what they're getting into.
Second... I think all of us get into writing seriously because we have ideas that just won't go away. And the only way to exorcise the bastards is to write them. The question is whether you'll be happier with it nagging away at you but not having to put in the work, or happier doing the work and not letting it nag.
And from the sounds of it, you know the answer for yourself is the latter.
In which case, good idea. And by good, I mean that comparative to your other options, its the best one. Sometimes you simply have to take your best option and get on with it.
The Big Peat, the thing is with my guinea pigs is that I know the first question they will ask is, "where is the rest? Don't torment us!"
Yes the answer is the latter, I think, though getting my bum on the seat in the study will be hard at times.
What's the most fascinating aspect of this work that you want to resurrect it?
A unique idea?
A unique character?
A unique plot?
There are more questions you might add for yourself.
Whatever the fascination, you may not have yet fallen upon the best way to tell the story; because you haven't identified what exactly it is.
Just a thought.
It has two out of the 3 things you have listed. I also want to write it the way I feel it needs to be written, no over thinking things, or making it should fit into this or that format, set of rules etc. Maybe this adds to the emotional baggage with this work. I don't want to play it safe with the story telling or construction.
The thing about exorcism through writing - the best approach can sometimes be not to include them in a fictional book, but just to write down what happened, what you thought and felt, what you wish could have happened, what you think you could have done better - and for balance I'd suggest also "how it could have been worse". Get it out of your system that way. Later on, it can then be useful raw material (sometimes very raw) for you to draw on to remember what it all felt like at the time.
I think though that what tinkerdan just posted is really valuable. And one question to ask is - "is the only reason I am trying to write this is because its on my list and I hate failing"?
Montero, if I wrote it all down I would be writing for a long time. As for hating to fail, failure and disappointment are old friends, it is succeeding that scares the hell out of me. Though getting Oracle and especially, Hand of Glory, with it painful history with regards to so many near misses, published has shown be that it is not all that bad.
What a perfectly timed post Susan, thank you
Distance helps spot the broken, but doesn't fix them. The more you rebuild the more you doubt it.
I have come to the conclusion that a fresh slate is better than one covered in scrapes and gouges, I'm tucking mine away in a box.
But. Has it broken you, or did it make you stronger
Broken me? For a while I have actually felt it had. Not the story, never that, just the baggage surrounding it and having the courage and strength to finish it