When to Kill a Writing Project and Start a New One

Like so many newbies, I jumped into the deep end and starting wildly flailing my arms and legs thinking I was going to be the next Michael Phelps. Who needs training and practice when you're a natural, eh? Well I do.

Everyone who read the early chapters of Project IK was pretty positive about my writing. They said I wrote compelling scenes and likable characters. Score! But what they didn't know was that I had no idea where I was going. I was completely pantsing it, that is writing by the seat of my pants (some people call this discovery writing). I'm not here to say pantsing is bad, if that's what works for you, awesome, go for it! What I am saying is that fully pantsing isn't for me.

One of the problems I got myself into was that my main character was directionless. He had no goal, no ambition, and was essentially adrift at sea, while the supporting cast was awesome. Why are we reading about this boring guy when everyone else is more interesting?

This led to the second problem of not knowing what the ending of my story would be. I don't mean that I was having trouble with the details, or tying everything together. I mean I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen, not even a direction I was working toward.

This then led to my third problem, the kitchen sink. I tried to stuff every cool idea I had into one story, and without the overarching narrative to tame it, it all just got away from me. Perhaps some day I will write a story that includes monks, secret societies, brothers, ghosts, a sea witch, werewolves, fae, and giant cat people, but that day is not today.

It exploded in a hundred different directions while the main character sat there like a lump. It has unfortunately gotten to the point where I have no reasonable choice but to shelve Project IK. But I have learned some important lessons and have begun on a new venture which I have dubbed Project Silver.

Project Silver is simpler. It follows the story of a single character instead of a multi-threaded and intertwined storyline. I think this will help a new writer like myself be more focused. I have an outline (GASP!). I have a very clear understanding of my protagonist's goals and where I want the story to end up, while still leaving plenty of room for my pantsing tendencies to express themselves as I put meat on the bones of my outline.

Wish me luck!

Start Over/Try Again

I won't go into the specifics, but my writing efforts have temporarily been detoured form my novel concept to a short story concept (unrelated projects).

I am having a lot of fun with it, but I was getting hung up on the ending (I'm not finished it yet, I just don't necessarily write chronologically...). Conceptually I was fine with what I wanted to do, but my executions were just not working for me. I tinkered and tweaked it for much longer than I probably should have and was still unhappy with it. I began to worry that it was just a bad idea that no amount of rewriting would be able to correct for.

I finally went to one of my best sounding boards. I gave my wife a brief summary of the important points on the ending concept and she said she didn't see any inherent problems with it as a concept (please note my wife is very critical of my writing, she does not pull punches or sugar coat things and I adore her for this). While that was a relief to me it brought me back to my execution being the problem.

Fortunately I remembered I've had similar feeling about individual scenes from my novel project (Which I clearly did not internalize enough or this would have come to me sooner). And in those past circumstances I was able to find something I liked through repeated attempts to write the scene anew. Each time I would change something. Perhaps start the scene with a different character speaking, or start with a description, or maybe change the point of view. Each attempt being a different expression of the same basic plot points.

As in the past, I finally hit upon one that clicked with me. If I had to boil this experience down into a quick lesson it would be: Sometimes you will have better results completely starting over, multiple times if necessary, than tinkering with something that just isn't working.   

Originality is Overrated

I was asked earlier this week whether I thought my story was original or not. The person who asked me has not read any of my written work and was legitimately asking the question.

“Absolutely not.”, was my immediate response.

I don't think there is such a thing as true originality. I don't think that there really can be. Nothing is truly unlike anything you've seen before. That's just how things work. We build off of other things. We may improve it, we may put a twist on it or make it our own in some way, but it is not original.

And I believe that's fine. Too many people get hung up on whether the core concept has been 'done before' or not. But lets be honest, people rarely read for the core concept. They read for the characters, the setting, the escape from every day life and the immersion in another time and place. And most of all, how well you present all those things to them!  If you've truly got something original, that's great, but unless you execute it well, no one will care.

So don't shut yourself down before you've gotten started, originality isn't the only yardstick by which to measure writing.   

Ideas: Time and Growth

Ideas take time to develop and mature, as do writers. My current writing project started taking shape in my mind back in 2009 when I was on vacation in Disney World. And while there are still some elements of that original core concept, the story has greatly changed and evolved over time.

I don't want to say too much for fear of spoiling things, but I think the most significant shift came in that my original concept was based largely on what I would now call a gimmick, a power of one of the character. The character in question still does have a diminished version of his original power, but the story is not built solely on that as it's foundation. The characters, their personalities and interactions are now firmly on center stage, and I believe it is making for a much more compelling story.

The side note here is that you shouldn't be afraid to change your original vision. Some of the things I changed more recently were a struggle for me. I had lived with these ideas floating around in my head literally for years, and it felt very odd to change them. I felt like I wasn't being true to my original vision. But to be blunt and honest with myself, despite my attachment to it, my original vision sucked. It was a fun quick idea, but it was not a compelling piece of fiction.   

Let's try writing!

I'm an illustrator, primarily in the Sci-fi and Fantasy spaces.  I've always approached projects from a storytelling perspective.  It's not enough for me to just produce an eye catching picture, I want people to be able to see a story in the details, a history and a future.  

I'd make up elaborate stories about the characters and places I illustrated to help find the little details that really made a picture work for me.  And then one day I just decided to try my hand at writing.  I already enjoy storytelling, so why not give it a try.  And if in the end I end up with something good, I can even illustrate my own cover.  

While I'm at it I thought I'd put my thoughts out [here] as I learn the process.  I hope that readers find this blog interesting at the very least, and maybe occasionally helpful in their own journey's.  

This blog to be irregularly updated as things float across my mind.