Monday, 19 September 2011

Novel Abandonment

 I don't know how you novelists do it, I really don't. 30K into my current attempt and I realise I'm writing another science fiction quest novel. As if the only plot drivers I can come up with concern people going to fetch things, as if they were nipping to the shops. It's dead to me. I'm starting a new one. Sure I could probaly get it finished if I plodded on, but, meh.

Quest novels are great, but I don't want to write one. I want to write like Phillip K Dick. So I've searched out my old copy of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' and I'm reading it in the hope of enlightenment. Boy, it's good. And only 180 pages long.

Mabye I ought to plan more, or something. Sigh.

The next day. . . .

Ah. This is a bit embarassing really. Today the novel doesn't seem too bad. Maybe there's more to be learnt soldiering on. What am I like?

15 comments:

  1. Fear not, I think all of us writers have a few abandoned novels tucked away in a drawer somewhere. I know I do.

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  2. Thanks, Trisha. I appreciate that. Hopefully it's all part of the learning process.

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  3. Pantsing it often leaves me in a similar predicament; I wonder if I should plan more, too.

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  4. I'm a happy panster for shorts. But novels are proving to be a new beat. You got to keep trying new things.

    Reading Dick is leaving me both inspired and depressed. That man could rock it. I wonder if he was a panster.

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  5. Well, you have to follow your heart in these things. I'm thinking I might plot a bit more heavily for my next one to see how it goes.

    As to this book - one of the few where the film is better than the book it's based on. Discuss.

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  6. I have a few abandoned novels hiding on my flash drive too. Sometimes my stories have a mind of their own and go off in directions I didn't expect and might not have wanted. It might still be good though!

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  7. I have plenty of novel beginnings and even some middles lurking around in my files, but I think that's pretty normal:) Always good to follow your gut instinct, even if it tells you to abandon something. Good post!

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  8. You wouldn't be the first to walk away from a novel. Look at it this way: it's better to find out it's not for you at 30k than 100k, right?

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  9. I know I shouldn't laugh, but I did. We have such different predicaments as writers. Somehow I can never abandon a novel, not after writing 30k words of it.

    Hoping you'll hit your stride with another story.

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  10. You can do it!!! Says she who is struggling with her own.

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  11. Hello everyone. Thanks for your support and good wishes. I've, err... decided to plod on. Thinking that there might be more to be gained. Good grief!

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  12. Hah. I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this!

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  13. Hi Deb. You are so so so not alone. I tend to go back and forth a bit too. One day I'm pulling my hair out over something and after a day or two away I'm like, "Oh, it's not so bad after all". LOL

    I pantsed my last book and it's pretty broken. I realized that I can't foreshadow events I haven't planned out yet, etc., etc. This time I trying the outline and so far I'm pretty jazzed about how it's going. :D It is all a learning experience, for sure.

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  14. Hello Sylvia and CherylAnne, thanks for the support guys. I'm beginning to think that plotting is going to be the way to go.

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  15. Funny coincidence, Do Androids Dream was my PKD book of choice for my vacation this year. It's brilliant. I followed it up with We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson's final novel, which blew my socks off, and is also short. I'm beginning to see that a shorter novel can be like a swift, hard punch to the solar plexus: impressive and difficult to forget.

    I've got too many partial manuscripts in my trunk to offer authoritative advice, but I do think that some kind of outline, even a sketchy one, is the way to go.

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