Trying to write a shape-shifting novel

[TheNightTerror]

I swear, there must be a gear loose somewhere in my head, or something that could explain this. I just felt like ranting a bit somewhere, I've tried to start my current story no less than 75 times and counting, just about to start the 76th time.

I've been trying to get a decent opening to this story since late 2006, problem is the story keeps changing on me every few versions. I wrote one whole version of the story that had only two characters in common with the present version, the plot was completely different, but I wasn't happy with it and wanted to rewrite it.

I keep changing things here and there, and every time I make what seems like a minor change, and start a new version because I was unhappy with the previous opening, the ripple effect winds up having a huge effect on the rest of the plot.

By the time I finish sorting things out and have a new outline, and start trying to write again, all the work I did sorting out the new timeline goes out the window because something felt off, and I change another thing that causes another ripple effect which means rewriting the entire plot again.

I swear, I must have ADD or something! Anyone else had a ridiculous amount of trouble starting a story like I've been having? I almost wish I could come up with another story idea just so I could get something finished and get the wheels in my head turning properly again.

[Matera the Mad]

There but for the grace of a stubborn attitude go I...wish I could tell you how, I just know that I refuse to let myself go haring off on too many plot branches. While I was writing the current WIE (Work In Editing, as opposed to Work In Progress), there were a few chapters that went off on their own tangent and had to be amputated. Otherwise, once it got well underway it knew where it was going and kept on until it got there. A few years of editing haven't changed the basic shape. I think my relationship with the MC had a lot to do with it. It's his story, and we've always talked things over.

[Fade]

Terror, the same thing you're describing happened to me. I'd start a story, but then something would change, and I'd have to restart after a couple pages (sometimes I'd type a couple hundred words before restarting, and sometimes about 40,000). What is my current manuscript started as one of those stories that I was probably going to quit writing. I just never quit.

Keep writing. :) You'll finish eventually.

[sunandshadow]

Yeah, I have one particular story idea that has behaved exactly like this - Kissing Dragons, aka The Dragon Story, now infamous with at least two writing groups. Every time I nail it down it feels wrong, and when each individual piece feels write they refuse to fit together. I've tentatively attributed the problem to the bad goal of wanting to make a 'literary masterwork' which contains all my good ideas. I've had other people suggest I actually had a trilogy and was trying to cram it into one novel, but I personally felt there was too little plot, not too much. On the other hand having 4 pov characters made it a bit overly complex in that way. I ended up trunking it, with the idea that I could write something easier first, then go back to it if I ever felt more up to the task.

[backslashbaby]

I have this problem, too. What I did this time is outline the parts that are etched in stone - the parts I love dearly. Now the rest MUST fit with those parts... I don't allow myself to even daydream about the parts that won't fit. This is why I only write one WIP at a time, with nothing more than short stories otherwise. It's hard, too!!

[Prawn]

Write the end first.

[sleepsheep]

Maybe you are just trying to write several different stories? So, wherever you are now - plot it out until the end, and then write it. Perhaps, all your different ideas and shifts are just ideas and plots for entirely new and different stories.

[TheNightTerror]

@Fade -- yep, that sounds just like me. Attempt 76 just got thrown in the wastebasket, 77 is coming up tomorrow. Today it was something stupid, I accidentally drank decaf coffee of all things and had the wrong music in the background.

I sure hope so, thank you! I think I'm getting closer to what I'd like it to be, the only ideas I've had for changes lately are relatively small ones.

@sunandshadow -- I wonder if my problem could be that I'm trying to make my main character too perfect? I have a very rigid idea for how I want her to be and if I stray just a little from what I had in mind, out goes that version.

@sleepsheep -- that doesn't seem to be it. It's more that I decide something doesn't fit, and find something to replace it with. There have been a few very distinct versions of the story, but each has gradually evolved from the last.

[Namatu]

When one of these changes happens, is it really necessary for you to go back to the beginning to fix it? Why not keep going, write the rest of the story, and leave the "fixing" for edits? Plot points and character traits can develop organically as you write. They may not line up with what you've outlined, but that doesn't mean your planning was wrong or for naught or that you have to pitch it all and start over again. It just means the characters are driving the story and steering you in an unanticipated direction. Follow it and leave the rest to sort out later. Otherwise you'll be caught in attempt 158 and getting no further.

[sleepsheep]

Maybe you are just a perfectionist! When I was writing my master's thesis, I went through a similar experience - I just kept changing things, trying to make it perfect. Until my advisor told me this: "just get it all down, and admit to yourself that it won't be perfect."

So, maybe try doing that. Write the story as is, knowing that there are things you wish to change later, and accept that it won't be perfect. Once it's all done, you can tweak it, but at least you'll have the whole thing written down.

And by the way, I completely sympathize. But I've come to expect that nothing I write will ever be perfect, so I am able to move along (albeit, unhappy about it).

[Aggy B.]

It's hard when you realize something won't work as you first envisioned it. There will always be the temptation to go back and fix it NOW! And, of course, some changes effect the whole story thus requiring major, major rewrites.

You need to just keep writing. When drafting my current WIP I had several points, especially in the second half where I realized that what I had planned to do was just not very good. And I had ideas how to fix it. Most of them involved rearranging and rewriting whole sections. But I needed to get the draft finished, so I didn't go back and "fix" anything.

Instead, I made notes on the changes I needed to make, then I continued writing AS IF I HAD MADE THEM. That rough draft was a mess, but by the time I finished I knew pretty much exactly what I needed to do in the next draft (which I'm working on now) and my ending was solid.

That was very difficult to do, force myself not to constantly rethink and rewrite the novel as I went. But in the end I've gotten a lot further than any previous attempts on anything.

Maybe that approach won't work for you. But the key is you really need to keep moving forward. A lot of shifts I had in plot were due to not knowing the characters as well as I could have. As I started to be more comfortable with them, the story started to take shape in a way that made more sense. It was not, however, something I could have done without getting into the latter stages of the story because some of the characters change significantly towards the end.

Hope that helps.

[Kathleen42]

Write the end first.

Good advice. I recently started working on an idea I had first had five or six years ago. It wasn't until I had ideas for both the beginning AND the end that I really started getting excited about it.

[James D. Macdonald]

Write all the way to "The End" before you edit anything.

[TheNightTerror]

@Namatu -- I'm so easily derailed that one idea to change the story means a rewrite, but it doesn't help one bit if I'm not entirely happy with the latest version and I'm not far in. Most of the time it's not necessarily taking the story in a new direction, just a problem with what I already wrote. I don't like to edit when I write so I'd rather restart it.

@Aggy B. -- you're way braver than me! That would've totally thrown me for a loop trying to keep writing the rough draft like that, my reasoning would've been that if I'm going to have to redo the beginning at some point I might as well start over!

When I'm only throwing out a day's work it's not so much trouble to start over, just a bit frustrating, but something like that could be a plan once I get a bit further in.

It is a good idea, thanks!

[swvaughn]

I've had this problem with one novel that I absolutely intend to write some time before I die. It's about a circus. And that is the only concrete detail I've nailed so far.

Sometimes there are vampires or other creatures involved. Sometimes it's just the usual circus freaks. Sometimes it's modern, sometimes it's back in the heyday of traveling circuses. Sometimes there is one MC, sometimes there's an MC couple, sometimes it's an epic third-person limited with multiple POVs and sprawling scope. Sometimes there are monkeys.

So I just keep writing other novels, and this one bubbles in the back of my mind until I finally figure it all out. One of these days, I will write my circus book!

[Blue Sky]

Closely related to your difficulty in writing this novel--Do you know what shapeshifting is? The dramatic physical body stuff is sexy, of course, but we everyday humans can shapeshift our consciousness. Check out a book just published called Shapeshifting with our Animal Companions by Dawn Baumann-Brunke. The author works a lot with animals, which may interest you in light of your herd of kitties comment. Perhaps this goes under the "research" category for your novel? Maybe you'll run across some ideas to go along with the sexy stuff?

[MDei]

I had this problem and I still do. I'm rewriting a story since my writing ability is much better and the second half is wonderful for a fisrt draft, but the beginning is dragging. I'm trying to start with something captivating and interesting but it aint working out. You're on your 76th time, well I'm on my 1000th.

[TheNightTerror]

@Blue Sky -- I'll keep an eye open for that book, thanks! I love cats, I've got four that aren't going anywhere and I'm taking care of a few strays as well. One might well be moving in with me soon.

[Leila]

I personally have a serious allergy to beginnings so I deliberately started my WIP a few chapters in, at a conversation between my two main characters that I knew would be easier to handle than a Beginning. Now I've written thousands of words and I still haven't gone back to write the first part yet. I figured it was better to procrastinate writing the beginning than to procrastinate writing everything. If that makes any sense. I'm going to write the beginning some time in the next couple of months, if all goes to plan. We'll see how it goes. I feel a lot more confident about it knowing that I've managed to write such a large chunk of the stuff that comes after.

Maybe you are just a perfectionist! When I was writing my master's thesis, I went through a similar experience - I just kept changing things, trying to make it perfect. Until my advisor told me this: "just get it all down, and admit to yourself that it won't be perfect."

I am a chronic perfectionist. If I were to let my perfectionism win out when I wrote first drafts, I would seriously never ever make any progress with anything. For me, making progress is about letting things go and being ok with writing badly. Writing badly is always better than not writing at all. For a start, it's actually very hard to write something totally irredeemable. The worst thing that could happen is that you could write something that needs a lot of editing. And I'm sure no one here has ever done that ;)

If my scenes aren't as good written down as they are in my head, if my characters aren't being exactly who I initially imagined them to be, that's fine. It doesn't mean I've written a bad story. It just means that it changed in the translation from vague story inside my head to written down story on the page. Sometimes the stuff that happens by accident turns out to be much better than what I originally had in mind. And if I have gone wrong somewhere (and I always go wrong somewhere) that's ok because I can fix it when I edit.

Also these days I actually very much like it when my characters go and do things that I haven't planned for them to do. It's always fun writing people with minds of their own.

By the time I finish sorting things out and have a new outline, and start trying to write again, all the work I did sorting out the new timeline goes out the window because something felt off, and I change another thing that causes another ripple effect which means rewriting the entire plot again.

There's this E. L. Doctorow quote that I love and live by. It's from an interview where he was talking about how he wrote, and he said of novel writing that "It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

What it means to me is that I don't have to be able to see the whole story at once in order to be able to write it. I don't have to know everything that happens or how every inch of plot will work. All I need to be able to see is the scene that I'm writing, and have a vague idea of what I'm heading towards eventually. And that's good enough. Whole novels can be written that way and work fine. Maybe leave the plot as a whole alone and deal with each scene as it comes. That might sound crazy, but it works for me.

[TheNightTerror]

@Leila -- I keep thinking that maybe I needed to start part way in, as it is I'm just stepping into the story where the two main characters reunite, but with the amount of back story I have, I'm trying to find a balance of telling enough back story before the meeting so that we know who the guy is before he turns up. Not easy, but I think I may have found a rough balance!

That's one of the best parts when I do get on a roll with this story, my main character is such a nut that when I start a version that does do her justice, something amusing usually happens. She's very impulsive, and a smart ass, she's good fun. :)

I love that quote! But it is worth pointing out that if you're taking a trip, you should at least have a vague idea of where you're going! Even when I go on spur of the moment road trips with my best friend, we can guess where we're going by how far we can get before we've run through half the gas in the tank.

I've had the ending planned for a long while now, it's the only part of the story I haven't had the urge to change, the direction I need to take to get there and how to get out of the rut I'm stuck in is the real problem. :)

[Swordswoman]

I so sympathise with this one, NightTerror - I deliberately lost count of the number of fundamental story changes my last one went through.

I can't improve on the great advice already given, but there's one other small possibility which might apply to you, and that's this:

Is this your first novel?
If so, you've got material for about a million steaming about inside, and choosing one of all those possibilities is enough to drive anyone mad. It took me a depressingly long time to realize that's what I was doing, and that often my 'new and better idea' was simply a different idea and was actually for a completely different book. When your changes are so radical the main characters split, multiply and change age and sex, then that's quite possibly what's happening to you.

If it is, then write down those new ideas as soon as you can, but keep on going with the version you're on now - right down to the end. Then look back at those notes, and see just how many different stories you've got to play with now! If they're all closely related, you might even (shock, horror) find you have the goldmine that is a series...

[Namatu]

@Namatu -- I'm so easily derailed that one idea to change the story means a rewrite, but it doesn't help one bit if I'm not entirely happy with the latest version and I'm not far in. Most of the time it's not necessarily taking the story in a new direction, just a problem with what I already wrote. I don't like to edit when I write so I'd rather restart it.I'll be troublesome and say you are editing. If it's not a detail that takes the story in a new direction, it's something you can deal with later. Write notes to make the changes that occur to you (use the insert comments function in Word) and keep going. As far as getting a perfect beginning goes, let me know when you figure that out. I never expect my beginnings to stay put. I usually end up cutting out two to three chapters before settling on the real beginning.

There are times at which my brain stalls and refuses to let me write any further. That usually means that a preceding scene went awry and my subconscious is waiting for me to catch up and fix it. It can take me a long time to figure it out, but the only times I've gone back to the beginning to rewrite are when I needed to do drastic overhauls. Everything else can be handled in smaller bits.

[cbenoi1]

> I keep changing things here and there,

You need to ask yourself if the goal-conflict-result of the scene are the same after you make modifications. When editing a scene, start by writing down the goal, the conflict and the result, and then check them again after editing to see if they are still the same.

If you changed the conflict because "hmm, that's not what my MC would logically do and that's not how the antagonist would behave as a result" and that changes the results, then you end up with unwanted arcs and/or different scene links that in turn need be changed all over the place. YOU are the one telling the story: bend the scene to your will, not the other way around. Just remember there are many reasons a character would NOT act logically or with poor judgment (ex: stress, love, fatigue, illness, etc), and it's your job to bend the rules so that the scene flows from goal to desired results. And if you really end up with a scene that doesn't really work no matter what, then you know you need to look at the preceeding scene and/or the scene that follows it for change. Not the entire m/s.

ETA: If you can afford a pause in your work (and can afford buying an extra book), then I'd suggest giving this book some thought. http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Writing-Fiction-Scene-Structure/dp/0898799066/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235578491&sr=8-1

-cb

[Feathers]

That sounds a lot like what happened to me. To make a long story short, I had a horrible time rewriting a particular story and actually had to give up, but after that I had to stop every few chapters and check my progress, and the end result was I made less and less progress. It was like my whole technique fell apart on me. I mean, for years. It got to the point where I worked on novelette's just because I couldn't finish anything else, and even those were a struggle.

Now I am very, VERY happy to say that I just completed a novel (which was hell but I did it) and am now working on another novel that, so far, is being a complete breeze. (so far meaning 20k in, which is so amazing I just want to weep.)

Anywho. I have no idea if my problem is actually your problem, but I thought it might help if I shared what helped me, in the event that it helps you. So here goes.

First thing was, I somehow forgot how to plot. Like I had ideas for where the story should go, but they always ended up faulty, always left me feeling like I needed to go back and fix something. As you well know, that has a cascading effect that changes the whole story. So I learned to do three things: find either a starting point or an end point, and have a basic plot goal for the story. (e.g., experiment discovers it is said experiment, decides to escape, craziness ensues.) Something that gives you a clear idea of what the "ensuing" would be. Finally, I learned to storyboard. As quoted from a blog post/comments (http://headdeskforwriters.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-02-04T11%3A11%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=4) of mine:

]Even if you’ve never storyboarded before, and you’ve promised never to try it, I’m begging you, give it a single chance. It’s incredibly simple:

1 -Buy some large stick-it notes in different colors.

2 - Go through your novel and scribble down the highlights of each chapter – or scene – onto a note.

3 -Stick them on a wall or board in chronological order. If you have multiple point of view characters, you can use a different color for each character.

And there you go. Insta-timeline.

This is the most influential tool of writing and rewriting I have ever found. It helps me organize my thoughts, no matter what part of the process I’m in, and it even allows me to follow subplot “threads” throughout the story (by using different color notes for each subplot.)

Normally I shy away from things that sound like outlining, because frankly, they kill my buzz. What I like about storyboarding is that it doesn't do that.

It helps me visualize something I'm toying with, to see if it actually works in my novel, and it helps when I start shuffling chapters around.

That's mostly it. The other thing I had to learn how to do was find my true story. The last novel I wrote, I couldn't figure out what my story was about, what kind of story it was supposed to be. The only thing that helped me there was doing the whole writing/writing again/writing AGAIN thing, and talking to others about it at regular intervals, and also trying to summarize it as a query or a pitch. The query helped me find weak spots and realize how my current story sounded to others.

Anyway. That's a whole lot of stuff and I hope it helps.

-Feathers

[TheNightTerror]

@Swordswoman -- it isn't, that's partly why I'm so frustrated. I think I have over 20 novel length stories done so far, so I know I can do it, something just isn't working right this time.

As it is the story I have planned probably is long enough to either be split up into several books or be the longest one I've ever written, one or the other. The longest one I wrote was over 700 pages long, so that probably says something . . .

@Namatu -- quite often the problem will be either the characters weren't acting right, or I found a problem with how things were going. But that does sound like editing all right.

*grin* I will! I've never had one yet either, one that's at least passable is what I'm shooting for.

@cbenoi1 -- it does change the overall results most of the time, I've just been trying to find a new way to get the characters to meet, but I want to try to get a version that at least starts true to them.

I can definitely handle a break, I'm not able to work right now and trying to write has been a pass time for quite a while now. I'll keep an eye open for that book, thanks!

@Feathers -- I wonder if my timeline is more of a storyboard? I have a few major events, and ideas for how to get to each one, but there isn't much detail.

Is it bad to have both the starting and the ending point and have ideas for the middle? I know how I want the ending to go and know what I want for the opening, and have a pretty good idea for the middle.

Definitely a lot of info to chew over! The forums seem a lot more active than I remember them being. :)