I am having serious second thoughts about the basic premise of my novel in progress. I no longer find it convincing. Also my theme, which once seemed so clear and compelling, now seems completely untethered from the plot.
For reference, I am currently working on rewrites. I have completed a “zero draft” of the story. When I first wrapped that up, I was still in love with it, but I knew there would be a lot to fix in rewrites. There were some big plot holes, the ending needed a better thematic set up, and one of the main relationships wasn’t really conveying. So I have been working to fix those problems, but to my dismay, it seems like all the work I am doing continuously just exposes bigger underlying problems. It’s to the point that now I can’t even remember how it was supposed to work as a book at all.
To some extent, I understand this is “normal.” Typically, the advice I see online is that you should just finish the book anyway for the sake of practicing finishing. But I have two questions about that. 1) …really? and 2) how? How do you muscle through finishing a book you just don’t get at all anymore?
Thank you for your answers guys! A lot has changed since I posted this. Long story short, I am still working on the book. The good news (which is also the caveat) is that I did manage to reconnect with the premise. I still don’t know how I would have kept going if that didn’t happen.
The “how” of that was incredibly unexpected, and I should probably blog about it, but I also want to mention it here because I think it’s instructive.
The short version is that I read. I’m a huge proponent of reading to fuel your writing, but for the last couple months I’ve been stuck on this absolute slog of an 1858 fantasy novel. I wanted to love it, but I wasn’t actually taking in anything that was feeding my creativity. Last week, I shelved it for a new book. And WOW. That new book was so good that it literally reminded me what I love about books, and in turn, what I loved about this book.
Brad, I really appreciate that you wanted to answer according to my personality lol! The truth is, I don’t normally need outside encouragement and I’m usually confident in my instincts. But I think one of the reasons I posted here was because my instincts were failing me and deep down I could tell.
(P.S. If anyone’s curious, the book I was struggling to read was Phantastes by George MacDonald, which I so wanted to love because apparently it’s the book the opened C.S. Lewis’s eyes to how fantasy could be used as Christian fable. The book a loved is a brand new release called The Other Valley by debut novelist Scott Alexander Howard)
That’s such a relatable issue, Jessie!
I think it’s really cool that you’ve completed something most “writers” never will–a complete manuscript! I mean that quite seriously, you should be proud of the accomplishment.
I think it’s so hard to give blanket advice at this stage, because your personality is critical to the solution. Like you said, it’s normal to feel a little bit discouraged at this stage of the process. Sometimes we just need someone to tell us to muscle on.
But other times your intuition is right. Maybe this manuscript was really good practice, and now you’ve learned some things that you can take to the next project and do even better. Not every manuscript is going to be a winner. It’s sad to hear that, given the investment we make in them, but it’s just the truth and sometimes the wise business move is to recognize what it is and move on to a project with more potential.
There are two things that might be helpful.
- What was the mission of this project? And the follow-up–did you complete that mission? When you first set out to do this, what was your articulable intention? If your mission was to write a market-ready manuscript, and you made a plan for the book that hit all of the marks, then the right move is to keep pushing. If the mission was to complete a manuscript and then re-evaluate–well, that might make your decision a little clearer too.
- “Revise Book” is too big of a job. It’s always overwhelming. That’s why I break the process down into four compartmentalized steps. You can find a video of the “The 4-step revision process” in the “Courses” section of The Company’s website. This process forces you to fix one type of problem at a time, rather than trying to fix everything at once. It’s helped a lot of people push through those big feelings of overwhelm at this stage to make measured progress to a complete manuscript.
I think your personality really is the deciding factor here. Are you the type of person that’s hypercritical and needs encouragement? Or are you typically optimistic but your brain is helping you to recognize something and make a good decision.
I’ll pray for you as you sort it out. Hopefully some of this discussion helps your wheels turn.
Jesse,
I have no experience finishing a book, giving me no right to tell you what to do. What I can do is speak from what you said.
Reading you description made me feel like your gut tells you the story needs something else. By coming up with something else, and it might even be a big part of the story changing the direction, you could reignite your feelings about completing as something worth finishing.
I can speak about writing on a small scale with over 100 blog posts written. I have felt exactly as you describe when I was near the end of the post. I realized I would not tell the story this way in person, because there was nothing there. Maybe what I am asking is can you describe the story verbally so that you like what you are saying about it? Even excited about it?
Maybe 95% of the things I write have a good idea, but I feel like they’re missing something and they sit in that waiting folder. I think I haven’t got the skills for them and they are “resting” until one day God’s grace finds me equipped to do them right. That’s why I think this 95% is my school of writing and humility.