It's Dead Jim - When a Book Just Doesn't Work

Full disclosure. This topic was my suggestion. Yes, indeedy, you CAN blame me for this one. I suggested it because at the time, I was struggling with a novel. Still am. It's historical fiction. I *thought* I had a plot, but the more I write, the less momentum within the story there seems to be. The more I wrestled with the themes and the characters, the less sure I was of anything. So I put it aside and wondered if either it or I should be put out of our mutual misery. Thus the question. How do you know when there's no hope?

I ask because I have a forest of file folders filled with abandoned stories. Some are little more than ideas jotted down. Some have half a chapter. Others are several chapters. Only one is past the 25,000 word mark and that one wasn't abandoned because it wasn't working - it is awaiting its day in the sun after having been orphaned by a publishing house that declined the option for it. It WILL get finished and pubbed in some fashion.

So even though I have plenty of stories littering the corners of my brain (and notably, my hard drive) I've discarded not a single one of them. Because of three things:

1. Hope springs eternal - If I let these stories stew long enough, what ever issues kept me from completing them will be worked out
2. I'll get better - I have bitten off more than I could chew in any number of stories and I simply do not yet have the storytelling chops to pull these things off, but the more I write, the stronger I'll get and then these difficult story concepts will become approachable
3. Your time will come - some of the stories I've abandoned in my past are from when I was a kid. I am no longer in the same place as a human being as I was, but la plus ca change, right? I'm not the same person I was yesterday, either. So there may come a time when one of those old stories strikes a chord and I'll finish them.

Why do I not power through my issues with my stories? Because I subscribe to Shakespeare's words:

O time, thou must untangle this, not I.

It is too hard a knot for me to untie!

When to Give Up on a Story

The short answer: 

NEVER

The long answer:

I don't believe there are stories that can't be told. Therefore, no project is beyond repair. They are just words and MISTAKES CAN BE FIXED.

That said, it may be a story that you or I aren't yet ready to tell as it should be told. It may, like good whiskey, need some time alone in a dark place to ferment while you trudge onward, honing your skills on other projects.

I have several trunk manuscripts either whole or in pieces. Eventually, the blunders will be figured out, fixed, and these stories will find a home. I truly believe that. Why?

1.) Because I am committed to learning my craft and re-writes don't scare me. Putting forth a weak effort that lacks character, voice, action and conflict does.

2.) Because I am willing to admit mistakes I made. Revisiting old published works and seeing the flaws *facepalm* have some embarrassment in them, yet the kernel of gold is in understanding how far I have come and the knowledge that I am better than I was before.

3.) Because I am UNwilling to let those characters lie dormant or let those tales go untold. People are constantly evolving--or should be, because stagnation is boring. Characters can evolve from their flat first incarnations. They can become deeper, more interesting and challenging. Plots can be twisted and changed to add new excitement.

Writing your book is a personal test.

But here's the secret key you should not lose sight of: there is no end of the semester unless you GIVE UP. As you grow, you can take those old 'tests' out and peruse them again as you like. If you recognize the flaws and correct them, then you've passed THAT test.

The next step is to go and create another test for yourself.

Recalcitrant WiPs Never Die

When do I know that a WiP isn't working? 
1) When it's hard to write.
2) When I'm bored while writing it
3) When I'd rather paint a ceiling than write a scene (seriously, I loathe painting ceilings)

When do I give up on the WiP? 
1) Never.
2) I may give it a long, long break, but I never give up on it.
3) I let it rest when I've devoted two weeks and am still tooling with the same chapter(s).

How do I know if it's fixable? 
1) Dudes, I'm a writer. Everything is fixable.
2) A broken story is like a headstart in Mad Libs. Keep the core, shuck the rest, try again.
3) Still broken after the Nth attempt? Walk away. Work on something else. Get lost in something else. Come back with a mind full of wild and crazy notions. Try yet again.

How can I have such a blasé attitude about recalcatrant WiPs?
1) I'm not under contract. I have no legal obligation to deliver something to someone for them to render judgement. Score one point in the Pro Author-Publisher column.
2) I don't ~cough~(anymore)~cough~ publicly annouce release dates for books I haven't yet written.
3) I sure as shit don't start a pre-order before having the book DONE.

Yeah But...
1) What about setting reader expectations for the next book?
2) What about losing audience because you take too long or don't deliver on an arbitrary schedule?
3) What about [insert stress sitch here]?

Quality over Quantity, my friends. Rule for Life. Rule for Writing.  

Also? Don't enter the game by setting or agreeing to false expectations. Even if you're trad-pub or hybrid, don't promise stuff you can't consistently deliver. Rumplestiltskin isn't going to help you out of that jam.

I never truly bury a WiP. It may be in a box under my bed while I work on other things. However, I have faith in my imagination. It may falter (it often does), but it doesn't quit. I don't quit on a story, on my aspirations, or on my career.

How to Know When to Give Up

 

Can't believe it's already time! But the Coastal Magic Convention is only a few weeks away and January 15 is the last day to register. I love this convention and there's going to be tons of great authors, bloggers and readers there - so if you can wrangle it, you should totally join us. Great panels, terrific interactions and it's right on the beach. SO fun!

So, this week's topic is: It's dead, Jim - how to know when a project isn't working vs when its fixable.

I want to tell you a couple of stories.

Back in the mists of time, when I was a baby aspiring writer who focused mainly on creative nonfiction, I helped organize this annual writers' retreat. We brought in some great speakers and one year I drove to Denver International Airport to pick up a guy who was the Editor in Chief of a prominent creative nonfiction literary journal. On the two-hour drive up to Wyoming, we talked a lot about writing, publishing, the industry in general and my fledgling career in particular.

(BTW, this is a great way for newbie writers to begin building industry contacts. Volunteering to pick up or escort visiting agents, editors and established writers gives you time to have longer, more intensive conversations.)

At any rate, one thing this guy said to me was that he felt strongly that some aspiring writers should just give up. It was his opinion that not everyone possessed the native talent to be a writer. He said he struggled as an editor not to simply tell some writers submitting to the magazine that they should give up already and go do something else.

Of course, I obsessed over this, wondering if *I* was one of those people. He'd rejected many of my essays, after all.

The second story happened many years later, after my first book of creative nonfiction was published by a university press. I'd switched to fiction and had written the book that became ROGUE'S PAWN. I shopped that one for a *long* time. Years. I had two friends who were in the same place, shopping their first novels in the genre. One of them hit it - won a contest, got an agent and a three-book deal. The other two of us kept slogging along. One day, the other unpublished gal asked me how long I was giving myself. At first I didn't know what she meant. "I'm giving myself a year," she clarified, "then I'm giving up."

I told her I had no deadline, that I'd keep trying until I succeeded. That response totally mystified her. I think she regarded me as quite foolish.

You know what? She gave up on being a writer. ROGUE'S PAWN ended up being the first of the Covenant of Thorns trilogy and I have in the neighborhood of twenty published fiction works out there.

I realize this is all somewhat sideways of the question - which is when to give up on a project. A lot of authors I know have "under-the-bed" books that they say will never see the light of day.They call them learning books and are happy to let them go.

This is just not who I am. "Stubborn" is one of my defining characteristics, and yes, more than one person has cited it as a character flaw. Including my PhD adviser. He also told me he didn't think I could make it as a writer, when I said I wanted to be a writer instead of a research scientist.

So, all of this is byway of saying that this division doesn't exist in my world. Nora Roberts rather famously says she can fix anything but a blank page. I agree.

Never give up. Never surrender.