Concept to plot

Until you give yourself permission to make mistakes and write rubbish you're very unlikely (some people do without) to get past the stage where you don't know what is happening.

For me writing a story is a lot of asking questions:
"How can I make it worse?" "OK that happened but why did it happen?" "What were the consequences of that?" "But when did that happen?"

How, when, what, why, where etc are all part of writing a story. The most important questions for me are "How can I make it worse?" once it can't get any worse then I started asking. "How can I make it better?"

Do you spend time with your characters? Do you ever given them substance or a face? I find giving them a real face can help start to build them.

Have you ever rewritten any of your drafts? Again and again?

lizo27 said:

I've been writing on and off for almost twenty years. I've finished two novel drafts. They are both terrible. I have tried pantsing and various methods of plotting. But I guess the problem could be that I'm not working hard enough or haven't tried long enough.

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I've been writing for nearly 30 years and still have to put in a crap ton of effort to get stuff right....

I've only ever done pantsing (didn't know plotting existed until I'd been writing for several years already). I've written maybe six or seven novels, possibly more (never bothered counting and most of them went in the bin), one sit-com (about 6 episodes) and probably another 20 aborted novel or screenplay attempts (can't count them, most went in the bin, maybe one or two are lurking on my computer somewhere). I'm currently working on 4 different projects - two novellas and two novels (one of them that's probably going to be a series). I think these are probably publishable (after being beaten into shape) but I'm not 100% sure about that. Only one novel written before these I think may possibly have potential for being published, but only after some serious, serious editing. Like going from a hundred and however many words down to 40,000-50,000 (if that) kind of editing because there's a hell of a lot of waffle and drivel, but I think there's a good story hiding in there somewhere. It needs pruning a little (with a chainsaw).

Point is, even after 30 years of hard work and many attempts at novel writing, it's still taking me a crap ton of work to produce anything that I'd enjoy reading. And I wouldn't expect it to be any different after 50 years. I don't think I'll get to the point where I can just write something that's perfect the first time. I think it'll always be a case of constantly having to revise, edit, rewrite and rework a story until it's good.

I don't know why you're so negative and down on yourself constantly. You're listing reason after reason why you can't do this and can't do that... I'm trying to give you some perspective, so maybe you'll stop beating yourself up and start writing or fixing what you've already written.

lizo27 said:

No. I have no interest in revisiting those stories. They are terrible and should be left alone.

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That's the problem right there.

But maybe it's the short form that could teach you the part you're missing about how to plot.

I have struggled with everything I've ever gained in my life. Many of those things have taken me years and years to achieve even though others have done them easily. Life is such. Nobody else can tell you if you should write or not. But I don't think it makes you a failure if you don't. But that's just me. I only see failure in giving up too easily. I don't think twenty years is too easy.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

lizo27 said:

No. I have no interest in revisiting those stories. They are terrible and should be left alone.

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Then that's why you're never improving. If you're not willing to rework things it will be crap forever. It's your decision to leave them that way. How do you build those characters?

My first novel took thirteen drafts before it went from awful, terrible to something agents liked. (my current one might take three)

Have you had a beta reader go through them?

You're writing yourself off and there is nothing any of us here can do to stop that.

Pick one and just rewrite the first three chapters. Every writer has their own method. Mine is 1. Write draft. 2. Read draft. 3. Bin draft. 4. Start again until it works.

How do you know?

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Because all of my first drafts look like a total crap heap.

Where they come to life is in the revisions.

If you do not revise, you will miss the major part of learning to write.

lizo27 said:

Why would it help my present problem to go back and work on crappy old drafts? Those ideas are done.

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Nope

It would help because revising is what 95%* of the writers you admire to make their manuscripts work.

Not revising is like refusing to train for the Olympics. How can you get better if you don't try?


*I would say 100%, but JAR...but I will bet that the vast majority of books you adore will have been revised. Heavily. It is part of teh job description.

Why would it help medical students to work on cadavers? Those bodies are dead.

All flippancy aside, the reason is the same -- to see what happened to the bones. The best way I've found to improve my own writing is to go back over some old things that I hate and pick them apart -- what about the structure doesn't work? Is it that the characters aren't the right ones? Or maybe I tried to shoehorn them in somewhere that didn't fit. Maybe my climax happened too fast, or too late, or there wasn't a climax at all.

By doing a post-mortem on my own work -- or even on published things, or someone else's manuscripts -- I can see how stories are constructed on a granular level. That can help me figure out where the disease is setting in for a new one.

lizo27 said:

Why would it help my present problem to go back and work on crappy old drafts? Those ideas are done.

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Do you ever want to write something good?

Because until you work on those crappy old drafts all you are ever going to write is crappy old drafts. If they are crappy old drafts then clearly they are not done. Until you have taken one novel from concept to polished (even if it is bad) you will never ever work out your own process and way of working.

You're choosing to just write crap and never improve. Until you decide to improve the crap it's all you'll ever write.

The first time I "finished" Mayhem it was rubbish. It was 50,000 words with 100 characters and nine subplots. Now it has six subplots, fifty characters and is 99,000 words - a much better book. Of those words I think only nine remain from the first draft.

To be honest if you haven't taken one of those books to completion you are either only writing for yourself or you're wasting your time.

lizo27 said:

Well, the general gist of the advice seems to be that it will sort itself out or I will figure it out through writing it down. I have tried that, and it doesn't and I don't. As for not getting hung up on whether it's perfect--I can't even make it not bad, where's perfect? Seriously. If I can't even write a first draft or write an outline that's not execrable nonsense, then what am I doing trying to write a book?

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I agree that you shouldn't be so harsh on yourself. I outline every story in a different way, whether that story is original or fanfic. One of my best stories is a short I wrote in first person present and didn't plot via any paper method at all. I just went, "what would happen if a pair of serial killers fell in love?" And let that stew for about a week before I was ready to write. You WILL eventually find the method that works for you. I'll give you some examples of methods I've used for various novella+ length stories, and they all work when it comes to plotting for me. Whether I finish the story is a whole other thing.

1) Outline as you go - I used this when writing a Gothic Horror novella, and it worked really well. I just had to think about what I had already written and write a couple lines as the summary for the next chapter.

2) plot point list- I used this for a SF-Horror story, and I've been thinking of it as a baby outline. But I can see how it would keep things fresh as I'm writing that story, and I'll be keeping it as my outline. I like the idea of that extra bit of freedom.

3) Q&A outline- I just ask myself things about the story and characters. It's like interviewing the story.

The point of this rambling is to not beat yourself up, and that every story will need something different. Don't get tied down or commited to one method unless it proves a consistent thing for you.

lizo27 said:

There is nothing I could do to my completed drafts or any of my countless aborted novel attempts that would make them worth reading..

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Then all you will every write is crap. It's a simple choice - take the story by the horns and work on to improve it or spend the next twenty years continuing to write the same crap.

We can't help you do that.

What I struggle with is the fact you appear to have no love for any of your characters. The plot is far easier to fix but if your characters are crap then you have a far bigger issue.

lizo27 said:

How do you know? You've never read them. I have. They are not salvageable. I am not interested in those ideas any more. They are broken; they do not work. I won't waste any more time on them.

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Because I've run across some really terrible writing, but very very very few terrible ideas. Poorly executed ideas. Yes. But that's a question of writing skill.

And, because I know what a terrible hot mess of a manuscript I produced in 2008 for NaNoWriMo. It included a note four chapters in to rewrite the opening with my main character disguised as a boy. (And the rest of the MS with her being disguised as a boy.) It was in really lousy omni perspective, full of head-hopping and purple description, clunky dialog and pages of unnecessary narrative that info-dumped backstory and world-building. One of the last chapters had a note that when I revised, one of the characters who had been an ally for the first 3/4s of the book was to be a villain. And there were mysterious subplots that had nothing to do with anything except I thought they were cool when I wrote them.

But I kept going back to it and after two rocky drafts, started over from scratch. Then revised repeatedly until I secured an agent. Then revised again to make the book submission ready.

It took six years and 8.5 drafts. But it is a great book now.

And, because I know that no matter how well you plot a story, there will be some point that it becomes difficult or you write a chapter or sequence that is terrible. Because we all do. And if that's all it takes to make you give up on a book - that something isn't working - then this may not be the pursuit for you.

Sure, having a whole book that's a hot mess is different than having a few chapters that aren't working, but a lot of us have started with the former and kept at it until it's not a terrible unsalvageable mess.

And folks have offered you a lot of input and your response has been multiple variations on "I tried that once and it didn't work so I won't do it again." and "But I don't wanna." and "You don't know what you're talking about." Which is making me feel like I'm wasting my time because you aren't looking for advice, you're looking for a guaranteed solution. And there isn't one.

But, you know, best of luck with whatever you decide to do.

Aggy B. said:

B "You don't know what you're talking about." .

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When quite clearly those posting have worked on the crap and come up with something good.

lizo27 said:

I just don't believe that everybody just hates everything they write until they reach some magical point in revision. Either you have faith in an idea or you don't. Either it works or it doesn't. You have to have some reason to put the time in. There is nothing I could do to my completed drafts or any of my countless aborted novel attempts that would make them worth reading. Trying to revise them would be like digging a hole in concrete with a spoon.

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I'll be honest, if you're not going to work on something after it's completed. Well, then I don't see how you're willing to write. It isn't the first draft that matters but what is done with it in revision. I'm willing to be that is why you're not seeing any measurable progress in your writing. Perfection can't be reached in one pass, even our own JAR rewrites every page until it is perfect the before moving on to the next. Rewriting is a part of things, whether you like it or not.

lizo27 said:

What difference does it make if I love my characters? They belong with their stories. If their stories don't work, they don't work. I love all my characters. That doesn't make me able to build a story out of nothing.

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I've asked several times about your character producing process and how much time you spend on them etc. You've never answered.

You don't appear to love spending time with them because that would be your motivation to rework the story.

And if you had good characters then you wouldn't have nothing. Convince me your character building is worth all this soul searching.

lizo27 said:

I just don't believe that everybody just hates everything they write until they reach some magical point in revision. Either you have faith in an idea or you don't. Either it works or it doesn't. You have to have some reason to put the time in. There is nothing I could do to my completed drafts or any of my countless aborted novel attempts that would make them worth reading. Trying to revise them would be like digging a hole in concrete with a spoon.

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I didn't hate the drivel I wrote in the early days, at least not when I was writing them. But they were still drivel. I cared about the characters and I enjoyed the attempts at writing them. Also, I could recognise bits that didn't work and I was constantly trying to revise and edit and improve them. Going back a few weeks later with fresh eyes, I could see they weren't good, but I didn't let it put me off. Either I'd edit/revise some more, or I'd start a new project.

Thing is, you're being ridiculously harsh with yourself. You've never given yourself the chance to get your stories to the point where they're good enough. Then it's a vicious cycle, because they're not good enough, so you beat yourself up, and convince yourself that there's no point trying to do anything with them, then you never ever get to the point where you've written anything good enough......

You need to stop beating yourself up and stop telling yourself that those first drafts are crap and unworkable. As long as you're stuck in that mindset, you can't go anywhere. You can't improve because what you need to do to improve is to stop giving up on your first drafts and try to rework, revise, rewrite and edit them into shape.

You have to get yourself out of this completely negative, self-defeating mindset and get writing, and try to work one of your first drafts into something that's good. It doesn't matter if it's these first drafts, or the next one, or the next one, but almost no-one writes a good first draft, so sooner or later you need to actually do something with those first drafts instead of writing them off (and yourself) as unworkable without even trying to work on them.

lizo27 said:

If you took the time to revise--6 years!--there was something about that story you loved, even if the manuscript was a mess. Otherwise you wouldn't have kept at it. I detest everything I've ever written. I don't even like to read it again. How on earth would I have the motivation to spend that kind of effort on it?

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I love my characters. I always love my characters. Deep, in my bones love. That's why I'll keep working on their story until it's good.