Advice or good books about finishing please

[BookCat]

I have written a number of novels, but none have been finished to the point of being publishable. The closest I got was back in 1989 when I was approaching the end of the second draft of a book set in the aftermath of a nuclear attack - then the INF treaty was signed and the Berlin Wall came down, so I abandoned that novel (which had taken years to research and write).

Since then I have begun, but not finished, many first drafts - one as long as 50K (for Nano, but it doesn't end the plot).

I need advice or pointing to a good book on the topic of actually getting a novel FINISHED.

Since the fiasco of 'The Seventh Angel' (the title of my nuclear war book, which I afterwards nicknamed 'The Redundant Angel') I seem to lose heart and burn out at some point. I don't run out of ideas: the book is outlined in advance, I just run out of energy.

So how do you keep going to the end? Please tell me. If any good 'how to write your novel to the end' book has helped, please tell.

[gmw]

First let me direct you to a thread I posted about Susan Sontag. The quote given there is useful to think about, and I mention it again below.

What follows is based entirely on works for me, it certainly does not apply to everyone.

I wonder if "outlined in advance" is your problem? Too much detail in your outline so that you no longer have the drive needed to see it through? Yes, detailed outlining is the way many work, but it's not the only way to work. For me writing is an adventure just like reading but hugely extended. I write to tell myself the story.

At some point I do know how the story is going to turn out, but not usually at the start. At the start I don't even know if there is going to be a story yet. But even knowing how it is going to turn out doesn't give it all away for me. I have to write the characters into position, and that remains an adventure: how do the characters, while staying in character, manage to get there? The finale is not usually something that any of the protagonists would have gone to willingly, and the struggle to get them there is part of the adventure.

I always write from within the story. A typically sitting involves me first re-reading what the previous few scenes until I am back in there with the characters - so that it feels like the characters are telling me what happens next. Between that effect and my own knowledge of the general direction, the story bends towards the finale.

And the point of explaining all that is: if the writing itself was not an adventure then not only wouldn't I do it, I doubt if I could do it (or not with any result worth reading). And this is largely why I don't work from a detailed outline.

So maybe, just maybe, you might consider ignoring your outline for a time. Probably you will want to keep the general idea of the conclusion ("Frodo throws the ring into Mount Doom" kind of thing), but discard the details surrounding it (the struggle with Gollum, the capture by Orks, the meeting with Shelob), and just pick up from where you had gotten to (assuming you like what you have to that point) and see what the characters want to do. Given their possible (in character) choices, you the writer influence them enough to pick the choices that seem to head toward the ending.

The suggestion is offered as a way forward, as a way to discover if just getting involved with the characters again, and letting your characters help you, will give you the drive you need to finish.

There are lots of problems with this style of writing. It's slow. There tends to be a lot of waste - I write a lot that has to be cut out later (characters deciding and/or explaining what they are doing). And sometimes you write yourself into a corner. But at this point it pays to remember that Susan Sontag quote linked above: the problem is the solution. Sometimes the obstacle itself is what makes the situation most interesting.

FWIW

Good luck.

[BookCat]

Thank you for your interesting thoughts. When an idea for a story occurs to me, within about ten minutes I've developed it into a fully formed plot in my mind, even if the details aren't filled in. I'll then quickly write it down so that the story isn't forgotten, from this develops the basic structure which I put into Word's Outline View. During the following days it turns over in my mind and more details surface: characters, places, incidents etc, which I jot down then put into the Papel writing software. The incidents might get placed into Word's Outline View.
At some point, either because I'm fired up, or it's Nano time, I will begin writing, beginning at any point in the outline, not necessarily the beginning of the plot. During the days and weeks of writing I'll take naps which will result in me suddenly having more ideas for development. Initially these are placed in Papel, later in the Outline.

Gradually, more body text will appear in the Outline as the writing progresses. But there will come a point when a kind of despair (not boredom with the book, or loss of faith in the story) comes over me and I decide to 'take a break' but never return to the writing.

The Susan Sontag quote makes me wonder whether my experience with 'The Seventh Angel' has somehow made me feel that finishing a novel is pointless. If this is the case, how can I overcome this?
Thanks.

[arjaybe]

"Despair" seems to suggest that you think it's no good or not worth finishing. Possibly you're afraid of finishing and having your writing judged. If something like that is the case, you should either quit trying, or buckle down and finish it. Get out of this cul-de-sac.

[gmw]

BookCat, after sending my post through I realised that it presumes a character-driven plot - which (as is probably obvious) is what I usually work on. Such an approach is much more difficult to work into anything like a murder mystery or other strictly event driven plot.

Back when I first (outside school) tried to write fiction, I tried to write science-fiction. Since I had a primarily science and technological background it seemed like it would be a good fit ... but it didn't work. I had plenty of plot ideas but nothing kept my interest beyond a few thousand words (and the writing was appalling). If I had been more aware at the time, the first signs of what I could write were showing in those early attempts, but I failed to recognise them and years went past before I made any more serious attempts.


The next couple of paragraphs are personal reactions to your comment: "within about ten minutes I've developed it into a fully formed plot in my mind". We all work in different ways, so my reactions should not be taken as criticism of what works for you.

My first reaction was: you lucky sod! Not even my short stories form that quickly.

My second reaction was: no wonder you've lost interest. Any problem, whether it was with my fiction writing or my software writing, that I could solve in ten minutes would quickly bore me to the point of drudgery. I'm one of those perverse people who enjoy difficult puzzles.


As for "made me feel that finishing a novel is pointless. If this is the case, how can I overcome this?"

It is very difficult to judge your own work, and yet we are our own first critics; we get to decide what is worth keeping and what is not. My judgement is based almost entirely on whether what I have written maintains my interest on re-read. If I can read over what I've been writing and feel myself still getting involved with the characters then I feel I am doing okay and I push on. If I find myself getting bored with my own writing I start to look further back, to see where it is that I start to lose my interest, and that's the point from which I consider I have to rework my story. If I get all the way back to the start then it gets archived as pointless.

So it seems to me that you have a few choices:

a) Take up arjaybe's advice and "buckle down and finish it". For this purpose I suggest looking at this quote from Stephen Donaldson: "I write every day, and every day I give myself permission to write badly." By reminding yourself that your first draft doesn't have to be brilliant, you can push ahead and actually finish, accepting that it might be crap. Once you are finished you can reassess what you've written and decide what needs fixing.

b) Follow what I do and re-read what you have written so far and try to establish where your mind starts to wander/get-bored. Then see if you can work out why. Do you need more interesting characters, do you need extra characters, do you need more problems or trouble, does it simply need cutting? Could it be that your original plot idea is a bit sparse? (Whether your story is character-driven or event-driven, all starting ideas need to be flexible and adaptable; you never see everything you need to see right at the start.) Related to that is another thing I read from Stephen Donaldson that I found resonated with me: he always needed at least two ideas to form this story around; it was the interaction of these multiple ideas that gave it the extra spark he needed.

c) Get a few others to read what you have, see if you garner enough enthusiasm from them to inspire you to work on it further.

ETA: I do not suggest tossing it aside. If you plan/want to write more stories then I think you should probably force yourself to finish at least one of your open projects before starting on something new. I believe the experience of finishing is an important part of the learning process, and something you need to go through. This is not to say that every story you start must be finished, but you should avoid making a habit of it. So finish one, even if you finish it poorly. It will hopefully give you more confidence in starting anything new.

[BookCat]

Thanks. There is one particular book which I want to work on. I copied and pasted it into a text file and transfered it to my Kindle. Originally started and abandoned back in 2012, I'd forgotten most of it, so read it like a reader.
When I reached the end of the 20K words I'd written, I felt so frustrated that I couldn't read the rest of the book. Although the plot is slight, the main character had driven it along.
Here's a short extract from the first draft (I hope this is allowed, it isn't an erotic novel):

"Claire headed to bed, going through her usual rituals of clearing away the pizza boxes and glasses. Putting off the washing up until next day, and saying goodnight to Maisie, who was now dry and snug in her bed. Walking upstairs, she pondered upon the dream and whether she wanted it to return that night. On the whole, she did. Despite the odd resemblance to her boss, the man in her dream was certainly attractive, and his brand of thrill was different to that of other men. She sighed and headed to the bathroom.

Finally beneath her snug duvet, she deeply sighed with the pleasure of being in bed and able to rest. So exhausted, she felt so exhausted. Too tired to read, she reached out to switch off her bedside lamp and snuggled beneath the deep folds, looking forward to either a peaceful, restful sleep, or the dream of a strange man visiting her and giving his strange embrace, like one only seen in films.

Like a child on christmas eve, sleep eluded her in spite of the desperate need for rest. She felt as though waiting for someone, or something. Silly fool, she called herself as she turned over hoping that a new position would be more soporific. But she just wasn't comfortable, even though her bed was perfect. She fidgeted then told herself to lie still and relax, sleep would come. She was so tired.

The room changed and she was lying in an oak four poster with its old brocade canopy above her and heavy curtains drawn back and tied to the posts. Her double glazed windows had been replaced by ornate stained glass, just like before; and the room was a clutter of expensive oddments. Doubtless the Victorians thought this the height of style, to her it seemed a mess which she longed to get out of bed and tidy up. But she could not move, pinned by sleep to this bed which was not hers.

She watched a mist roll through the cracks around the window, gather together and form a bat that flapped its wings a few times then transformed into a tall man. The same one. She marvelled at his resemblance to her boss, then realised this was a crazy thing to be considering at such a time. Again, the black satin cloak with which he crossed his body with one arm like a shy Turkish harem wife. Then he opened his arms wide, holding the cloak in both arms in imitation of the bat."

Basically, she has delusions that she's being visited by a vampire at night.
I'm quite keen to finish SOMETHING and this is much easier than another I was considering: a horror mystery.
I'm not always attracted to paranormal subjects!

Thanks so much for all the advice, it has given me lots to consider.

[Cinisajoy]

You lost me at the first sentence.
Too long and tedious. No need to say what she didn't do.
Great first draft though.
Now be the English teacher and mark in red what was tedious to read.

[gmw]

And much as I enjoy and respect Cinisajoy's input to these discussions, for the moment I would say to ignore it. I would say it is too soon to panic over such details. (Yes, there is much in there that needs smoothing out, but there are also aspects that could be okay depending on a larger context - what you have set up beforehand and so on.)

What attracted my attention was in your introduction: "When I reached the end of the 20K words I'd written, I felt so frustrated that I couldn't read the rest of the book. Although the plot is slight, the main character had driven it along."

This is what I get. I can relate more to this than your comments about outlines because this is how I work; it is what I meant about telling myself the story. I get a scene like this in my head and I have to tell myself how it works out; who are these people and how did it come about and what does it mean? I write lots (that is never intended to see the light of day) about who the people are and where they've come from so that I get to know them well. My writing time is a mix of stuff intended for the book and stuff intended only for me, details I need so that I can know who these people are and how they react, and I trust that the background that the reader never sees will show through in how I write the characters.

Of course, I'm no famous writer, so my advice may not be worth a lot. But, whatever, I recommend you try to use your frustration as a driver to see this through to an end. Don't worry about the quality of the writing yet, that can be worked on. Just write.

[BookCat]

It needs to be born in mind that the passage given above was written in Write or Die during Nano, both encourage wordiness. None of the action is irrelevant, just out of context. She's just spent a very strange evening with her boyfriend; Maisie (dog) got very wet when taken for a walk by the boyfriend (she got him out of the way in order to do something he'd disapprove of). All her actions show her character without me having to say that she's easy-going about housework.
I gather that Cinisajoy is male; not the target audience.

gmw: asking myself similar questions about the characters and the plot is how the entire story forms within such a short time. I suppose I take a more direct route to my destination. Jotting it down is no problem, neither is developing events to further the plot or details which help me to know the characters. The problem is having the energy to run the marathon which is novel writing.

I'm determined to finish this one.
My inner critic is horrid enough, I can do without other negative remarks at this stage especially considering the purpose of this thread. (Yes, I'm looking at you Cinisajoy.)

[Cinisajoy]

Actually I am female so yes your target audience. Oh and my apologies, I thought that was the beginning of the book. If it is in the middle, it might make sense. I understood where you were trying to go and wasn't trying to be negative. Just giving a small tip. I did read the rest. It was pretty good especially for a first draft. I think you can go far.
Oh and I figured from the first sentence, you were male. I looked at your profile.

Now I will give you some other advice, if you thought I was negative: write if you want to, publish if you want to but don't ever read your reviews. I guarantee it won't be pretty.

Oh if you want a challenge, see if Donald Rump is still doing 8 or 24 hour challenges. Those are all short stories. The challenge is write and publish a story within 24 hours.
And if I am around, I do on occasion proofread short stories of writers I think have potential.

[BookCat]

I'm female.
It isn't a novelette but will be a 80K - 100K novel.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by BookCat

I'm female.
It isn't a novelette but will be a 80K - 100K novel.

I know I looked.
I also read that you have trouble finishing a story so I thought you might enjoy Donald's challenge.
I was thinking shorter and a quick deadline. And unlike Nano, the writing is worth more than the word count.
Hey if you can do that challenge, your novel should be easy.
I do wish you luck.
For what it's worth, my romance is stuck. I can't make it work without the main characters talking to each other.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by BookCat

[...]gmw: asking myself similar questions about the characters and the plot is how the entire story forms within such a short time. I suppose I take a more direct route to my destination. Jotting it down is no problem, neither is developing events to further the plot or details which help me to know the characters. The problem is having the energy to run the marathon which is novel writing.

I'm determined to finish this one.

I do a lot more than jot down. I have two thirds of a prelude novel (something over 100,000 words) relating to my published series, and probably another 60,000 words in short stories and other snippets. By writing actual scenes with my characters, outside/before the novel itself, I learn more about who they are and how they speak. ... It also explains why I write so slowly

It may be observed that I tend to obsess, so I may not be a good example. I suspect anyone that wants to make a success of their writing (get widely read) needs to learn to work faster than I do. (It would help if I had more time to spend on it.)

One of the reasons why this thread drew my attention is that I currently have three projects on the go in various stages, and one in particular is proving difficult. I've managed to get almost 38000 words of reasonably fast paced story together, but I still haven't really gotten to the story I originally wanted to tell (not even the scene that first inspired the story). My characters seem to have gotten away from me a bit. This was supposed to be a fantasy story, but so far the fantasy is still only showing as rather vague hints and I am concerned that my target audience will have long since given up on it. It may turn out that a lot of what I have written so far may need to be relegated to a private back-story ... we'll see.

Originally Posted by BookCat

My inner critic is horrid enough, I can do without other negative remarks at this stage especially considering the purpose of this thread. (Yes, I'm looking at you Cinisajoy.)

BookCat, one of the things I have learned on this forum is that any posting of actual text will invite comment on the quality of the text, and such comment will sometimes arrive without much regard to the context.

There are two morals:

* If you intend to share your work you need a thick skin. Learn to find useful items in any proffered criticism and to ignore those parts that don't apply.

* Only put up pieces of text that you are willing to have torn apart.

It is simple fact that even the very best work will find harsh critics. It doesn't matter how well you do, some people will not be happy with it.

That is much easier said that done. I paid someone to review an early draft of my first published novel and was effectively told to discard it and try something new. It was only after some weeks that I could get past the shock of their conclusion and realise the reviewer was trying to read their own story into what I had written (they wanted an environmental moral, which was not my intention). Realising that allowed me to finally see the useful things in the review (part of which was to try and ensure other readers did not make the same mistake) ... but I still remember the shock (and never sent them another manuscript).

[Pulpmeister]

Where did I read about a well-known novelist (was it Spillane?) who always wrote the last chapter first?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Pulpmeister

Where did I read about a well-known novelist (was it Spillane?) who always wrote the last chapter first?

Or was it John Irving?


http://www.writerswrite.com/john-irv...hy-he-62620121