I wrote this post a while ago, where I asked you if you'd ever set a WiP aside, and if you had, what happened to it?
At the time I'd finished (HA! yeah, it was nowhere near finished) THE CRACKS IN EVERYTHING and it was with clever Agent Julia. So it was shiny-new-book time for me.
I had an idea for a boy POV contemporary/romance-ish type story, and it even had (gasp) a title! My titling prowess is lame at best and so I took this as a good sign. This book had a plot. I had a plan. Yes, I'd confirmed the long-held suspicion that I was a genius.
So I set to work and wrote 19k words. And realised that the plot was RUBBISH. I set it aside. I wrote the aforementioned post hoping that you would tell me that this was a) normal, and b) certain to end in me running through sun-drenched fields of fragrant flowers clutching the finished work to my chest with a beatific smile on my face because, yes, one day I would finish the book.
You made valiant efforts towards letting me kid myself. (Thank you!)
A few months later, I read this post by Sarah Davies on the Greenhouse blog. You can see my enthused comment at the bottom of the post.
The point here is that I'm not a patient woman. I don't like waiting. I definitely don't like leaving things half-done and walking away. But a few months ago I could not for the life of me figure out how to fix this story. No matter how often I thought about it, no matter what crazy alternative directions I wrote down, no matter HOW MUCH WINE I DRANK (I know, it was bad).
I'd considered a change of genre - maybe this was a horror story. For a while I was convinced it was a contemporary ghost story. Or maybe a sci-fi? If I just added killer aliens or space monkeys, that would fix it, right? RIGHT?
Wrong. It's a contemporary boy POV romance-ish type story set in Siberia and London.
And what it took for me to fix it was TIME not WINE. Who knew?
Between the time that had passed (and in that time I'd written most of the first draft of another book and all but forgotten about the work that was rapidly becoming the-19k-that-shall-not-be-mentioned) and the stellar advice in the Greenhouse blog post, I figured it out. And lo, once again, it was awesome!
What do you do to figure out plot problems? Any advice for me if this happens again?
I did the exact same thing and you're right, time is a great way to fix story troubles! I am trying to tell myself that it is okay not to get loads of words down in a day or to abandon a project for a bit before coming back to it. I tend to feel lazy or remiss somehow for not sticking with it 'til completion, but part of this process is chewing stuff over for awhile. The ones that are meant to be books will keep nudging at you until you write them.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have word count guilt too!
DeleteIt won't be too long before I get to put my new idea for the WiP to the test though. You know, after I finish the current WiP and do another round of revisions on the previous WiP.
Where's the ice-cream?
I just don't believe you. Plot problems can't be fixed without at least one bottle of wine. :-)
ReplyDeleteGlad your YA contemporary boy POV romance-ish type story set in Siberia and London is once again awesome!
*reserves the right to bemoan the fact that YA contemporary boy POV romance-ish type story set in Siberia and London is not in fact awesome at all.(Probably when I hit the halfway mark and it becomes unfeasible that I, or anybody else in the world, could possibly be expected to finish.)
DeleteI usually let my WIP/novel/thing sit for a while if I am having issues with it. For example I took a month off to let myself cool off (I'd been doing 20 pages in a day of revising) and it was the best decision ever. Not only did I work hard on schoolwork (okay, graduating uni/college is kind of why I took a month off lol), but I also got to come back to my WIP not as stressed (see- finishing uni/college). I am now so ready to take on the hard stuff and yes...I'll give myself a few days/weeks if something is hard and I can't figure it out right then.
ReplyDeleteI mean....to be honest I do a lot of yelling and crying and WHY DO I EVEN WRITE when I am frustrated. I kick and almost delete entire novels...... I may make seem so easy above but really.....not so much, not always.
I really do need to learn some patience. I get frustrated with myself far too easily!
Delete*shakes head* I'm not patient with these things either. So far, this hasn't been a problem, but as I head into the drafting stage of a sequel, I'm starting to worry that I'm rushing into it without enough plot figured out. I supposed we'll see what happens...
ReplyDeleteI think at some point you just have to make a start, even if you run into problems later on. I didn't plot either my first or second books, and vowed I'd never do that again. But even though I had a fairly detailed plan for this WiP I'm nearly finished with, I'm very aware that there's a lot to fix in the second draft. Which I suppose is better than my deluded beliefs that I had finished my last book when I typed The End!!
DeleteIn my attempt at outlining, I have replotted my SF YA WIP about four times, have written 15k words, only to go back to the drawing board and start again. Not sure if it's the outlining (I'm a certified pantser) that's killing my WIP or the numerous plot holes... woe, time for more wine!
ReplyDeleteConsensus so far is hard work, giving it time, and wine. Well, I shouldn't complain, I'm good with two of those :D
ReplyDelete