When a novel doesn't gel

http://www.fearfulsymmetry.net/?p=314

This Seven Point Story Structure helped me a lot when I was having a similar problem. I read through this blog post, thought about it for a few days, and then wrote down the 7 points for all my plots in an Excel document. Then I coordinated the arcs and it was like light shining down from heaven.

There's a set of youtube videos with more detail on this from a presentation at a convention and the first one is here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcmiqQ9NpPE

Anyhow it was very helpful to me for fixing some serious plot issues. Can definitely be done after the fact. I ended up throwing out the last third of my book and reworking it so that everything came together properly and I'm really glad I did.

Might it be that your two characters each deserve a book of their own?

You might find that if you peel their stories apart that they'd perform better with different co-characters to bounce off. And voila! Two novels from one.

I had something similar with my sequel (I write without an outline, just a rough idea of beginning, midddle, end), and about 1/3rd of the way in, the chapters were 'flat' and losing their kick. So I shifted a few chapters around. Just reshaped it and blended it back together. It changed the impact of the ending, even though I never changed the end.

But it's a hard to place to be. I hope you sort it, DL.

Having read through this thread again, Devil, I wonder if you might benefit from some paid-for editorial advice on this book. I know lots of people resist it, and I realise you might not have the budget for a good report: but it could be worthwhile, bearing in mind the time it seems you've been wrestling with the problem on your own.

Devil Ledbetter said:

I've actually thought about that a lot. I may go that way.

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I was in this exact same situation. Except I'd done all the extra work to outline and revise and work it all until it should have gelled.
But it just didn't. It should have worked. My beta readers liked it, had good things to say...it just...didn't work in the end.

At first I thought I'd just have to work harder. Figure out how to be brilliant. Then I read something on Janet Reid's blog about dual POV's. She said she had an unsold author who had a dual pov book that was brilliant and fantastic, but that the key word there was unsold. No matter how brilliant, they are just...hard.
Hard to write. Hard to sell.

I thought about that for awhile, and then I went back to look at my own book. I realized the dual POV tends to divide the reader...like they can't stay as invested emotionally as they would with one protagonist. And even if the plot and writing are great, it's the emotional glue that makes a book gel. I am sure I could have re-written into oblivion, but I chose to kill my darling and lop off half the book, focusing in on one POV.

I'm halfway throught the rewrite and it was definitely the right decision. The story is much stronger, much closer to being "right".

So I just wanted to add my own experiance with this problem. I know exactly where you are right now and it's tough to figure out a solution.

mayqueen said:

Maybe I won't be able to explain this. Maybe it will be useless advice. Maybe it will help. I don't know. I also write multi-POV with lots of twisty plots. When I'm editing, something that helps me is to get a gigantic piece of paper and physically draw out the plot points. I can't even begin to explain in words what this looks like (hot mess), but the process of doing it helps me think through the plot points, multiple character arcs, and other issues I run into. The end result isn't actually very useful because it's pretty much unintelligible, but the physical act is helpful. I'm a visual person, so I like having that exercise.

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I do the same thing, on the largest sheet of paper I can get in the stationary shop, A1 or A0. I also incorporate my own opinion of 'Tension levels', and join the dots afterwards, it helps show if tension actually is rising and falling.

Devil,

So many great suggestions here, my addition is to go through your story, and write a one-sentence description of each scene. In the end, you may have 80-120 ~ sentences, sit back and examine if each scene makes sense, considering what has gone before it.

Best of luck.