How often do you give up ?

[Axelle]

Over the years, I've written a great many opening paragraphs. Sometimes, I made it as far as the first page - or even several pages. Then two weeks later, I usually ended up thinking "this is worthless" and I threw it all away...

...okay, I didn't. I kept all these openings and I still look at them sometimes, when I'm in a nostalgic mood. Makes me feel dizzy to look at all these novels I did not write.

So do you often start on a project not to finish it ? At which point are you more or less certain to go all the way to the end ? Isn't it terribly frustrating to throw months of work and fifty pages of text in the garbage can and to move onto the next idea ? How do you cope with that ?

I dunno if the question has already been asked - probably, but I couldn't find the original thread. Couldn't really word a search specific enough, to be sincere. But anyway, even if the question was already asked, you might have changed your mind since then.

[giusti]

Personally, I leave everything open. When I started writing, short stories didn't seem to interest me. I would force myself to write some, but practically every idea I came up with was epic. So I decided that I would just go ahead and write every novel idea that came my direction, no matter what it was.

Of course, it left me with a lot of unfinished works. After a while, I realized that this was okay. Because every now and then, I would run across an unfinished work, five, or ten, or twenty thousand words long, and work on it some more. Eventually, I started finishing novels.

So I think the key is to keep everything. If it's truly crap, you'll come back to it, and every time you do, you'll think, okay this one will go nowhere. But the ones that might actually work will probably turn into something eventually.

That's my take on it.

-giusti

[Elodie-Caroline]

I have 133 pages of a novel that I started back in 2004, my very first attempt at writing a story since I left school. But then I got the idea for something else, started that, finished it and the sequel. Now I'm thinking of a third book in the series, the biography of one of my characters, which I already have a 25 page mini biography for.
I also have a small outline for a completely separate story about a kidnapping that I shall start sometime.
I always keep my work with the intentions of going back to it.



Elodie

[Mumut]

I don't start anything without it having been in my mind for quite a long time. I'm quite sure I want to write about it when I start. I've written half-a-dozen children's stories, same number for the 10 - 12 age and I'm writing the third in a YA series with the first two published. The earlier completed dozen have a lot of editing before they're ready for publication, but I haven't started a story and left it after several pages.

[steveg144]

Never throw anything away. Seriously. Even if you "abandon" it, you may find it useful for other purposes. Example: my first novel (2007) was a big, sprawling monstrosity. But some of the chapters were quite good (ok, they were salvageable, with the potential to be quite good...). So I broke them out and have started reworking them and tightening them up, turning them into standalone short stories. I've gotten five into circulation so far, and have gotten two of them picked up. So I now think of my first novel as "ore," to be mined for little 2000-3000 word gems.

[angeliz2k]

As a much greater person than me once said, "never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in."

All those poor orphaned paragraphs and pages are worth something, right? If you go back to them, they just might spark an idea. So don't give up on them totally.

As for me, I have a ton of funny little bits here and there; usually they're more like 5 to 10 pages. There was a long time when I couldn't get anything started for the life of me, so I ended up starting and stopping. I have one abandoned piece that's probably 60k words. Thinking of which, I should revisit that. I must never give in, right?

[Michael Davis]

Let me shrink the "thrown away" from a story to a scene or paragraph. If the passage is good, really good, then why toss it? I've got a folder of paragraphs, scenes, and vignettes that (after I wrote them) didn't quite fit in the storyline. Like decorations in a house. Some may not go with one theme, but they work well in another home. They may have looked OK at the start, but as the story evolves and morphs, it just didn't fit with the flow anymore. But I never abandon them, especially when I love the wording, the emotion, the flow.

I've used several scenes/vignettes I took out of one story and used in another. Course I have to reshape and mold them, but if its reusable, them I do it. Hate to toss something that reads well, but just needs a new home.

[crrazyjane]

I spent about two years, on and off, convinced I should try to write bodice-rippers, but my bodice-rippers kept turning into epic fantasy. Very BAD epic fantasy. So I gave up and decided to stop trying to turn myself into something I'm not, and stick now to the fantasy, and leave my bodices generally unripped.

C'est la vie - sometimes you've got to go through a bit of trial and error before you figure out which story is the right one for you to be writing.

I do still have all those false-start romances on my hard drive. Maybe someday when I learn how to lighten up I'll drag them out and give myself a flashy nom de plume. ;)

[Joe Moore]

Never throw anything away. Seriously.This is great advice. With the availability of huge hard drives, storage is no longer an issue. And you never know what didn't work today will work tomorrow. I just started my 5th thriller in the Cotten Stone (http://www.cottenstone.com) series and wound up digging out a chapter I wrote for an unfinished novel in 1991, rewriting it, and using it for a chapter in my WIP. Think of your unused paragraphs, pages and chapters as remnants of cloth on a tailor's floor. Something can always be made from them. Good luck.

[Axelle]

Oh well, at least there's a consensus here. Most of what I abandoned was real crap, though (I was pretty young, too), so I'm not sure I could use it again, but I guess I'll keep it, if only for nostalgia's sake.
But that did teach me something - when writing, better to write about a subject you know and love. That way you're a lot less likely to give up.

[zornhau]

Your capital is the ability to write good prose. The prose itself is expendable. Bin it all. And, if you keep getting stuck, read the Uncle Jim thread from the start, or read Dwight V Swain (http://zornhau.livejournal.com/tag/dwight+v.+swain).

[ishtar'sgate]

Over the years, I've written a great many opening paragraphs. Sometimes, I made it as far as the first page - or even several pages. Then two weeks later, I usually ended up thinking "this is worthless" and I threw it all away...

So do you often start on a project not to finish it ? At which point are you more or less certain to go all the way to the end ? Isn't it terribly frustrating to throw months of work and fifty pages of text in the garbage can and to move onto the next idea ? How do you cope with that ?

It's possible you simply haven't found the right opening for your project. I wrestled with the first chapter of my medieval novel for quite some time before I landed on the one I kept. I can't even remember how many times I changed it. My original opening began with a young girl following her brother out to poach game. My final opening began with a village funeral. Far cry from where I started.
It hasn't gotten any better. I have two WIPs - another historical and a contemporary thriller. All I've done is double my trouble:D Although I'm happy with my story ideas, the perfect openings elude me. I just keep approaching the story from different angles, waiting for something to click. I'm getting close but I've discarded three or four openings and several first chapters.
You might try that. If you love your idea, try approaching the story from different angles until you're satisfied. Good luck!
Linnea

[Axelle]

Thanks Linn, but actually I don't have any problem with my current story (well, I do have to rewrite the opening, but only for plot reasons). It's just that, in the past, writing an opening only to throw it away happened a lot to me, and I was curious whether it happened to other people as well, and what people's experience is in general with regards to openings and/or ideas. Finding the right opening sure can be tricky !

[OddButInteresting]

The way I see it, giving up is an essential part of the process.

I have a habit of shelving ideas after a couple of days/weeks, but if I reckon they've got potential, I'll always come back to them. Always.

I dunno if this is the case with you, but for me the process goes something like this:

Conception (Creative High) > Stewing Period >Creative High > Stewing Period...

And it goes on until I have the Finished Product.

A "Stewing Period" could last hours, days, months, or even years. Heck, Lord of The Rings was Tolkein's life's work. It's not like he threw it together over a weekend in the country.

If I wrote the whole thing in one sitting, it would be shit (please forgive the "colourful metaphor"). I need to put a distance between myself and my ideas for a while so that they can develop subconsciously, and thus, freely. If my "Creative High" holds-up for too long, it informs me that I'm getting complacent.

[maestrowork]

I've started on things aplenty. I don't consider "giving up" though. I'll get back to them eventually. In fact, last year I finished a piece I started about 8 years ago, and I submitted it for publication. It's good to start something when the idea is fresh, but I don't think it's an obligation to finish something you just started, right NOW. Eventually, yes.

[DamaNegra]

I finish about 1 in every 5 novels I start. Nah, I'm just making myself feel better here. I've written only 2 novels all the way to the end, both of which need serious rewriting. I've maybe made an attempt at 10 or 15 novels. Most of them suck so much I'll never get back to them. Only about 2 ideas are worth saving. Depressing, huh?

[Kid At <3]

Always.

[Axelle]

I finish about 1 in every 5 novels I start. Nah, I'm just making myself feel better here. I've written only 2 novels all the way to the end, both of which need serious rewriting. I've maybe made an attempt at 10 or 15 novels. Most of them suck so much I'll never get back to them. Only about 2 ideas are worth saving. Depressing, huh?

2 novels out of 15 ideas ? That makes it, what, a 17% keeper rate ? Not that bad :D
Thank you all for your answer !

[Varthikes]

I've never given up.

Well, okay. There was that one screenplay I started writing for Star Trek. But I gave up on that because I knew there wasn't any chance of it getting accepted. So, I threw away what I had of the script, but I kept the basic idea of the story so I could recycle it for my own series. (Their loss if they don't want it).

And, there were a few stories I threw out because they didn't really have a theme.

[dragoon_elf]

I agree with what everyone is saying.

When I was 18, I wrote short stories like crazy. It's what I wanted to do, be a short story writer. There was one story that I started to write, and only wrote one page of it. Just one page.

College came and I did immature college things everyone did and wrote very little. That one page was left unattended to.

I'm now 23 and writing my first novel. I have 140+ pages so far and I'm going strong. This novel is based and starts (in a slightly edited form) with that one page I wrote and kept when I was 18.

[Novelhistorian]

Never throw anything away. But it helps if you've got a file manager or search engine that can find the right bit for you when you're cruising along and think, "Didn't I write this scene in a previous book?"

My current WIP is a case in point. For ten months, I fought my way through the first four chapters, rewriting them a zillion times and tossing out previous versions like popcorn. Except I indexed the rejects, using a handy program called dtSearch. So when things started to move, finally, they really moved, because once I got to Chapter 5, I found uses for huge sections of stuff I'd tossed out before. Partly as a result, I've written four more chapters in the last three weeks. Some stuff I wrote isn't usable, much of the rest in a different form. But I tell you--I felt great feeling a chapter that gave me fits (cut it or keep it? cut it or keep it? aw, hell, cut it) suddenly seemed perfect someplace else.

[III]

I've given up on querying for the time being. Does that count?

[Constantine K]

I've taken the advice given in the movie Never Back Down quite seriously. I never back down.

Mainly because I won't start a story until I'm pretty sure it'll work.

[Andre_Laurent]

I never toss anything. I have some beginnings sitting on my drive...and I'll get back to them when the time is right.

[bluntforcetrauma]

There's only one I haven't finished. It's a novella length story. I'll slog through no matter what. Sometimes a good story comes out of the bigger work.

[Charlie Horse]

...Isn't it terribly frustrating to throw months of work and fifty pages of text in the garbage can and to move onto the next idea ? How do you cope with that ?


Nothing you write, ever, is wasted. It all works toward improvment and acquiring the discipline needed to succeed at your craft.

[NeuroFizz]

Everyone approaches writing in a different way. Some take an idea and think it through to the point of making a detailed outline for the entire story. Others get an idea and just let it evolve from there. And, there are infinite "in betweens." Neither approach is a good predictor of success, though, so please, please let's not get into the outline versus "winging it" argument. The point is to find a path that works for you and follow it. If your plan for development as a writer can stand the numerous fits and starts, just chalk it all up to writing experience (and do save it all). You'll eventually hit on a project that will gain life. If you are frustrated by this approach, look for something different, like maybe not starting a project until you think it through a bit more. I still keep coming back to my favorite quote, from John Wooden (the former UCLA basketball coach): "Don't mistake activity for accomplishment."

[sheadakota]

I have a very tenacious personality- I feel I Have to finish anything I start- I do have to have a firm idea of the story before I start and will not write a word until that concept and the first line is firmly in my head- but once started I will keep at it unitl I have finished it- To date I have seven finished novels- I never thought about publishing any of them until about five years ago- I picked what I thought was my best- went back and completely rewrote it and edited it-several times and am working on number 8 now- This one is giving me grief and I have put it down for months at a time, but I am always thinking about it-

[zornhau]

I think it depends on your deficiencies. I used to tie myself in knots over plot. Either I didn't have one, or spawned too many, or had one that didn't remotely work.

I think that if the plot is broken, or if you have no idea how to write conflict, you can't simply bull through the story.

Now, if you're good or at least adequate at plot, but have problems with originality, vision or characterisation, you can still "finish" the novel.

To me, several failed starts suggests problems with plot. IMHO the Uncle Jim thread is a good place to start. Also, Stephen King's "On Writing" has a very good description of how he sets up his stories so that they'll write themself (sans outline).

[DeleyanLee]

I guess I'm the odd man out here--I throw things away. Delete, toss, destroy, shred, make all gone. Done this to countless books I got 50, 100, 300 pages into. They're gone for whatever reason. I see no reason to keep withered husks of words about when I've got new, vibrant ones needing to be dealt with.

Ideas, now that's a different matter. Ideas go back into the creative stewpot to discover new life and new meaning--but with that new life and new meaning has to come words that fit it, not words attached to some previous incarnation.

If I came up with a great description once, I'll do it again. A pithy turn of phrase is just part of the job I do every book. I'm never afraid that I won't be able to do it again because I've done it so often.

Maybe I'm weird, but I'm more into the story I'm writing now and the stories I've yet to explore than anything that's gone before at this point. *shrug*

[storygirl]

I give up an entirely different way. I'll write the book. I'll revise and edit it. Then I won't sub it. I'll just decide the idea I have for another story is better (cold feet and all). Or if I do sub, after one or two partials or fulls rejected, I'll shelve the book and move on to the next. I have a whole stack of rejections, but only a few from each manuscript.

This time, when my current WIP is ready to sub, I'm promising myself to try over and over again before I'm willing to set it aside and hide in my writing instead of putting the book out there for rejection.

[Shadow_Ferret]

I have literally given up. Haven't written anything new since the new year started and haven't submitted anything either.
I guess I'm the odd man out here--I throw things away. Delete, toss, destroy, shred, make all gone. Done this to countless books I got 50, 100, 300 pages into. They're gone for whatever reason. I see no reason to keep withered husks of words about when I've got new, vibrant ones needing to be dealt with.
I've done that. I regret it. I've shredded probably a million words that I had written during the late 70s. Wish I had them all back, if only to show that maybe I've made some sort of progress. Without them, I can't see that I've improved at all.

[Phaeal]

I used to produce a lot of beginnings. Then I took to heart the commandment "You must finish what you start." Since then I've finished everything. I also do a lot more notes before starting, which lets me figure out if an idea is workable ahead of time.

The old unfinished stuff? I've still got it. A couple pieces I'll get back to, I'm pretty sure.

[Wolvel]

I don't give up on a project unless it's a total turd.

As Peanut has said and I quote "you polish a turd it is still a turd". If I have one that bad it goes into the fogotten realm.

[David I]

I don't give up on projects, but I have three set aside to finish later. These range from 20 pages to 120 pages.

My stats:

Five novels finished. (Novels #2 and #4 sold, but not in that order. #5 will probably sell. Novels #1 and #3 need plot overhauls.)

Novel #6 is underway and going well.

So, taken altogether, I guess I've started nine novels, finshed five, and have one underway.

I expect to finish all nine. But not this week.

[goatpiper]

I saw a talk given by Michael Chabon a few years back, and he mentioned abandoning a novel that he had spent years on. He just couldn't get it to work.

[DeleyanLee]

I've done that. I regret it. I've shredded probably a million words that I had written during the late 70s. Wish I had them all back, if only to show that maybe I've made some sort of progress. Without them, I can't see that I've improved at all.

Ah, see--I've never regretted it. Probably why I still do it.

If I want to see improvement, I reread the finished books I still have hard copies of (about 30 of those). But unfinished ones (countless) don't get saved.

[~grace~]

How often do I give up? Every day. Every time I write a sentence that isn't the sparkling jewel I anticipated. Every time there are 7 other things I need to be doing, every time I have a new idea or get down on an old idea.

But I keep writing.

And I do not throw things away.

How often do I start a project and not finish it? I've started projects I haven't finished yet. But I rarely abandon things. I just rewrite them for five years. And counting.

[Angelinity]

How often do you give up ?

NEVER
ever
NOT ever

i take breaks. move from one idea, one story to another but that's it.

why would you give it up? leave it out there trembling in a vacuum of imagination?? cruel, cruel.... it's your baby, your BABY -- can't let it starve away. can you?

one day it just falls into place. if you love your baby -- and you must love your baby, doesn't everyone?

one day it will come to you. but don't forget about that baby. don't you dare.

[Chasing the Horizon]

It's funny that this thread should come up now, because just yesterday I was looking through my 'dead projects' file. I have 9 novel beginnings in there (ranging from 500 to 13,000 words each) and 5 more concepts that never made it to having the actual MS started. Most of those projects truly are dead, though a few may someday be dusted off and tried again.

I have a rule called the 'point of no return' with novels. If I hit 30,000 words, then the book WILL be finished. I kind of figure that if I make it that far, the idea must work, or I would've lost interest. I remember when my contemporary novel was at 29,700 words I just stared at the MS for a couple of days, because I knew that if I wrote the next scene, I would be committing myself to finishing it (this was kind of scary, because up to that point I'd never committed to anything other than my fantasy series, and wasn't all that sure I could write contemporary very well). Eventually I did write the next scene, though, and it's still going along just fine.

It doesn't bother me at all to give up on newly-started novels. I'm a walking fountain of ideas--most of which aren't very good :D . Why waste my time on something that neither I or anyone else will enjoy? It's almost impossible to tell what will work and what won't from the outline and concept, though. I've found that often times the best plots and ideas don't make very good stories because the characters aren't the main focus. So, if I'm bored by the end of the first chapter, then it's on to better things.

[Angelinity]

i don't understand. seems so many writers are likely to give up on a particular work...

butbutbut... when you actually START on a project, aren't you passionate about it? don't you have a STORY in mind? a story that wants to be told?

and if so... does that story not DEMAND to be told?

or... does it work differently for everyone else??

[DeleyanLee]

i don't understand. seems so many writers are likely to give up on a particular work...

butbutbut... when you actually START on a project, aren't you passionate about it? don't you have a STORY in mind? a story that wants to be told?

and if so... does that story not DEMAND to be told?

or... does it work differently for everyone else??

Depends.

Sometimes when I've started writing, I'm in the heat of an idea that smells like a novel, but isn't really a novel. It's just a very stinky scene or vingette or something short of a complete story.

Sometimes I had a novel story in my head, but my own lack of skill just screwed it up so entirely badly that it died right in my hands. Those are the books where I gut my memory of all the words written and recycle the ideas in my subconscious.

Sometimes the passion just dies after a few months. I just don't care about that idea any more. Not that there's anything more shiny dancing over there, but this one just isn't holding my interest over the long haul (12-18 months) it takes to write a novel. These I will keep around for a year or so, but if I haven't picked them back up in that time, they're composted too.

[Chasing the Horizon]

i don't understand. seems so many writers are likely to give up on a particular work...

butbutbut... when you actually START on a project, aren't you passionate about it? don't you have a STORY in mind? a story that wants to be told?

and if so... does that story not DEMAND to be told?

or... does it work differently for everyone else??
I certainly have a complete story in mind when I start, since I always have an outline made first. I've never been truly passionate about a story when I first started. Interested, of course, but not passionate. For me, the passion comes once I've been working on a book for a little while (or, in the case of the dead stories, doesn't come at all). The stories I actually finish do demand to be told relentlessly.

[David I]

I saw a talk given by Michael Chabon a few years back, and he mentioned abandoning a novel that he had spent years on. He just couldn't get it to work.

Yes--and when he abandoned that novel is when he wrote Wonder Boys. Which is about a guy who hads been working for years on a novel he can't finish...

[Zelenka]

I keep everything, even cuts from novels. Nine times out of ten I never look at the cut files again but they're all still there. I've got a few abandoned ideas but the way I look on them is that they're missing something, else they would be working, and eventually I'll hit on what that missing thing is. Sometimes it's that two half-done ideas actually belong together. I've seen me go back to stuff from years ago. In fact in my fantasy WIP, which I've finished the first draft of but didn't like the way the plot spanned out, I've just fathomed that what was missing was a setting that I'd created almost ten years ago for another completed but unpublished novel.

[Aggy B.]

The common wisdom around here seems to be "just finish the damn book then worry about whether it's any good." I can understand that and I'm not saying that is not good advice. But I feel that there is a lot more to writing than sheer volume. Sometimes focusing on that big word count goal can distract you from other more important things.

I too would like to say "I finished my first draft!" And I'm confident that whenever I reach that point I will still face several rounds of editing. But I'm finally getting to a point where I can say that I am capable of reaching for that goal.

The first (or perhaps the second) novel idea I ever had I finished. I was sixteen, the first draft was only about 170-180 pages and everything about it was crap. And I mean everything. I started working on revisions and then realized I simply didn't know how to write well enough to edit that first draft.

So for a while I worked mostly on all the stuff that was missing from that finished work: convincing dialogue, character arcs, character development/motivation, turning points, world building, etc. Then I took six years off to study screen-writing in college. Now I'm back at a point where I feel I want to work on a novel again. And all those bits and pieces that I accumulated over the years are still sitting there waiting to turn into the big novel.

Recognizing that the twenty pages you've just written are crap and moving on to something else is not giving up. It's just practice. All useful, all part of the process. We (I) would like to think that anything I've written is salvageable; all I need to do is keep reworking it. Truth is, everyone will write sheer crap sometimes and immersing yourself in it (trying to turn the turd into gold) will not help you get better.

Having said all that I must admit to almost never, ever throwing anything away. I do that partly to see how/where I've improved and partly because some of it is capable of being good if it's reworked. But a lot is just crap and I find I get a good chuckle rereading it.

Just my thoughts.

[Mythica]

I have 17 WIP's that I've decided to give up on, but I haven't deleted them. I agree with the word mine suggestion. It's not like 100% of the abandoned WIP's is bad. There's always a few paragraphs I might adopt into another novel :)

[Antony B]

I give up at least three or four times during every novel. I usually just wait for my inner critic to do something else. Then I continue writing.