Should I abandon my novel?

No, I don't think you should give up and start over. IMO, you're tired and sick of your own writing. Get out of the house and take a short break. Go to a bookstore and pick out three novels similar to what you're writing, or that you wish you could write, and study their plots and endings. Then come home and write a quick ending for your book, pretending it's already been revised the way you want it to be. Then revise it from the beginning. But don't give up on it.

You're so close to the end, I say finish it. Don't worry at this point about finishing it right. Just get the words on the page and write "The End."

Once you've done that, you can decide whether to trunk it or fix it.

Three chapters away? Finish it. It doesn't matter if you don't feel like it; just do it. Then start that shiny new thing, and a few months from now, take a look at the old project and see if there's anything worth salvaging.

You may be one of those people (like me) for whom endings are hard. But I've found that when I power through, even though my inspiration, my motivation, my facility with words all seem to be dry as dust, I never regret it.

And you've never regreted it, either, from what you say, so why wemble now?

Abandon it? How could you be so cruel? At least take it to a shelter.

No, don't abandon it. Finish it. Finishing what you start is a crucial writing skill.

Unless you wrote the book on stone tablets, I don't see any reason to throw it all away.

If you don't like the plot of your own book, go back and rewrite it. If the problems you have with the book are complicated, grab a notebook and start making a list of things you don't like, then tackle each point individually.

Also, I'd recommend thinking about why you started the book in the first place. What sort of story you wanted to tell, themes or ideas you wanted to explore, etc. Then read what you have and figure out where it fell short.

oooooh said:

Now it feels like there's just nothing there. It was meant to be a fun YA Adventure/Fantasy, but now all I can think is, 'this is lame and nobody would want to read this.' (Even if my characters are interesting, that's about all there is to it.)

Maybe it's the disappointment from a project I thought was going to end up my first novel query. Like, this was the one. And now it just feels like a pile of cliches and rubbish.

Click to expand...

It's very common to feel that way. It doesn't mean anything about the quality of the work, trust me.

oooooh said:

Sorry, that was a typo, I meant 23/36 done, not 23/26.
At one point, it was fun, exciting even.... but now all I can think is, 'this is lame and nobody would want to read this.' (Even if my characters are interesting, that's about all there is to it.)

Click to expand...

I've always wondered what it must be like to work on an animated film. They have a ton of people working for years to create a film that lasts less than two hours. By the end of that process, they must be sick to death of hearing the same jokes over and over and begin to wonder if it isn't all absolute garbage.

Then they finish, and if they've done their job right, the audience sees it for the first time. I can only imagine sitting in a theatre, watching the reactions, and suddenly remembering "Oh yeah, that scene was awesome the first time I heard about it."

I'm at the same point in my WIP as you. I'm kind of starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm tired of working on the same thing, day in and day out. I'm slogging through because I remember how I felt when I first thought of the story and I hope that, if I write well, I might be able to ignite that same feeling in the reader.

Okay, I'm going to be the lone voice of dissent here. Maybe you should finish it, maybe you shouldn't.

"Finish things" is good advice in general, but like any advice, it isn't one-size-fits-all. I have in the past not finished things that I knew I was going to trunk, and it was a good decision -- it enabled me to go on the the projects that I did complete and put out there. On the other hand, if you're not sure you're being completely objective about this or you have trouble finishing things in general (<-- though it doesn't sound like that is the case), then maybe finishing this book is a good exercise. But there are plenty of reasons not to power through to the end, just as there are plenty of reasons "finish it" often does tend to be good advice. It really depends on the writer and the book and the situation.

If you're not sure whether you're being objective about the quality, maybe send a chapter or two to a beta and see what they think? Or you don't have to trunk it entirely -- just hiatus it, write another book, and then come back and look at it again and see it with some distance. Maybe it's better than you thought and you'll recover your excitement for it, or maybe you'll realize the trunk's a good place for it, or maybe you'll decide to postpone the decision again and write yet another book. Your ms isn't going anywhere -- you don't have to make a firm decision; if this project is stalling you out then I don't see any problem with working on another one and coming back to this one later to see how you feel.

You know yourself better than we do. What will get you writing again? What will be the most productive choice? What will bring you closer to your writerly goals?

Good luck!

oooooh said:

Sorry, that was a typo, I meant 23/36 done, not 23/26.

I

Click to expand...

Oh! So you're slogging through the dull, boring midde.

You've got middle-of-the-book blues.

Oh yeah. Push on.

oooooh said:

Sorry, that was a typo, I meant 23/36 done, not 23/26.

Now it feels like there's just nothing there. It was meant to be a fun YA Adventure/Fantasy, but now all I can think is, 'this is lame and nobody would want to read this.' (Even if my characters are interesting, that's about all there is to it.)

Maybe it's the disappointment from a project I thought was going to end up my first novel query. Like, this was the one. And now it just feels like a pile of cliches and rubbish.

Click to expand...

Here's my advice: finish it as though the first two-thirds was already brilliant. Just because it started out poorly doesn't mean it has to end that way. Step up the quality of the writing and make the ending the absolute best you can write. If that means changing or inventing whole new plot points that should have already existed but didn't, then do it. But step up your game for those last ten chapters. Make it the ending to the book you wish you had written.

Then, if you're so inclined, go back and bring the first part of the story up the standard of the last.

I agree with slhuang's comments that a second opinion might help and that it isn't a one-fits-all.

If you've lost enthusiasm for it, and it is your first project, there's nothing wrong with starting something new, or even a few new things.

However, you do need to make sure you don't turn stopping three-quarters of the way through into a habit - finish something. However, it doesn't have to be the first thing you start, that you wind up finishing.

If 'story' is THE problem, it might help to write something shorter to begin with complete with beginning, middle and end, then go back to longer projects.

Whatever works.

I don't think there's ever a good reason not to finish. Ever. Three are, on occasion, good reason to start over from scratch, but never never not to finish. This is quadruply true if it's your first novel, but not finishing is always bad.

At best, it teaches you that quitting is all right, and at worst it teaches you to only finish the easy novels.

There are advantages to writer's quitting when it gets tough for them. The more writers who abandon their work, the less competition for those of us who don't. My wallet could benefit if you'd simply give up now.

But you have to choose what's right for you.

Jeff

I just published my first novel. Part way through, I realized it sucked. No amount of work at that point was going to make it not suck. The problem started much, much earlier. Finishing it wasn't going to make a difference.

It sounds like you're kind of there right now, so I really do know what you're saying.

My suggestion is to take a step back, think about your plot, and start over. If you've got scenes that you love, keep them. Copy and paste them into the new draft when you get there, but rework the plot until you feel like it doesn't suck. That's what I did, and I ended up with a story that I was surprisingly happy with rather than a long, rambling attempt that brought in elements from other genres I enjoy but really didn't have any place in that particular book.

Nothing is ever one size fits all though, like slhuang said above. I agree. Only you can determine whether you should dump it or not.

My first five novels were finished in this order: 1, 3, 5, 4, 2. I think only two were written straight through--the others were started, shelved, then finished later. Once or twice, I had a more compelling project to turn to. Once or twice, I hit a dead end and had to let something sit for a while--sometimes years--before I could figure out exactly what it needed.

So I would say that if you have another project to work on, go do that for a while. Doesn't mean you have to abandon your first completely--just let it rest and see how it looks later.

If it's an adventure story and you love your characters, keep 'em and write a new adventure! If you're bored, and it's supposed to be a fun adventure story, the reader may also be bored.

Or, you could skip the parts that are boring you and write the climax of the story, right down to the end, and figure out later how to make the front and the back of your novel stick together.

There are several bits of good advice on what to do. If you're at the saggy middle, my favorite thing is to jump to the end and write. I may not keep that end but at least it gives me something to aim for as I'm writing through the boggy bits.

Another thing I do is advice that I got on this very forum so I'm going to pass it along to you.

There are times when I need to put something aside and let it breathe for a bit. So what I do is at the end of wherever I'm at I write "and rocks fell, everyone dies. The End."

And put it away.

My subconscious simply canNOT let it go at that and while I'm tinkering around on something else, my brainmeats are yakking around up in my head until I figure out something I can do to move me further along in the story.

I pick up the story and carry on. Then, when I'm at a boggy bit and I can't seem to slog through it? "and rocks fell, everyone dies. The End."

I've done this a few times and it's gotten me past the bog to finish things.

Buffysquirrel said:

It's very common to feel that way. It doesn't mean anything about the quality of the work, trust me.

Click to expand...

Myrealana said:

Oh! So you're slogging through the dull, boring midde.

You've got middle-of-the-book blues.

Oh yeah. Push on.

Click to expand...

Nothing to add, but I really needed to hear these two things today. Thank you both!

If you finish the durn thing, then at the very least you'll have learned how to make an ending when there seemed to be none in sight. Whether it's a 'good' ending or not -- at this point, who cares? you can always put it aside while you gain more skills, then come back and fix whatever ails it (or decide that it's not worth your time if by then you have better projects in the hopper).

Tho since you say you have "23 out of 36 chapters" -- are you sure you haven't overplanned it to where the joy is being trampled by the planning? cuz I know I couldn't tell you how many chapters I'd have until I'd written all of them.

Here's my advice:
If you don't love it, if you can't extract any love from your characters, your plot, subplots––no love anywhere from any aspect, then stop and move on to something else. (If you can then continue writing.) If you move on to another work, and no sentiments return to that work you scrapped, then no love lost. What we call true love was never there. However, if you find yourself thinking back to it, missing it, emotions that only grow over the following days and weeks, then return to it, and finish it.

The novel series I'm writing: I love it––true love. My world, my characters, my plot: I'll never abandon it. There have been days when I'm down on it and think it's not that good––we all have those––but in the end, that love returns, because I believe in it; plus the work I've put into this and will put into this is tremendous. I see value in it that I never had for my other projects. The love dissipated and never returned with them. If that happens with your work, then you'll know you did the right thing, if not, and you keep thinking about it, then you care about it and should finish what you started. Wade through the pangs and dangs.

Mid book crisis is very common. Even the best and most successful writers will often get to a point in their story when they think "this is the biggest pile of horse droppings ever committed to paper and if anyone ever sees this crap it will be the end of my career." Some writers have that on every single draft. So you're not the first person to have this. You won't be the last.

Certainly you could dump this project and start another. But what's to say that two thirds of the way through that you won't hit the same wall? Repeat until you have a million words of unfinished stories, which are no use to anybody.

At this point you are too close and too emotionally invested in it to judge the quality of the story, so you can't decide if it's actually any good or not. But you do need to rediscover your love for the idea and the characters. I can tell you what I've done when I get to the "kill it with fire!" point in a draft.

Reread the story so far. Don't worry about the fact that the start is probably a bit half baked. You're still figuring things out at the start of the story. My starts always get the most editing. Concentrate on the core of the plot and to the promises you've made to the reader at the start of the story. You've got to keep those promises later.

If you have an outline, rework it from the point you stopped, or earlier if you think the story went off the rails before that. Try to get back to the core of the plot, to the story you wanted to tell in the first place. Think about the plot in terms of the character arcs. Where do you want those characters to end up? For me plot tends to be the events that will move the characters along their eventual fate, through their emotional journey.

If you have someone you trust enough and who is brave enough to read first drafts and see the potential in them, then ask them to read and give you thoughts on the story so far. Or just tell them a summary of where you're up to in the story and brainstorm with them on where it can go next. A different perspective is always useful.

YOU'VE GOT TO FINISH IT!
It might be a great story in the end.
If you are having second thoughts about it, take a break.
Maybe you need to travel or probably hang out.
Get some opinions and then return to your story
Maybe you have better thoughts this time.
Good luck to your story and hope you really finish it.

I disagree with most of these posts. If you haven't had the desire in over a month to sit down and work then move on to something else that you'll wake up every morning thinking about. I've walked away from WIPs a couple of times and never looked back; at least not yet. If at some point in the future you get the urge to revisit it then great, it will still be there waiting for you. But if you have no passion for what you're writing and it's keeping you from being dedicated to your craft, your lack of passion will show in the finished product and there's no point producing something you don't absolutely love.