forum Can some1 halp?

Started March 26, 2018 by Deleted user

tune

Heyo, I need help.
For the last few months, I've been trying to fix what I have written of my first novel. It's not going well. Should I keep trying to fix it or scrap it and rewrite?

Well that depends. Do you think what you have written is worth trying to save? If not, don't waste your time on it. And remember, even if you do scrap and re-write, you don't have to change everything. You can keep plot points and characters the same if you like them, and you can save passages (or parts of passages) you think you wrote well. I hope this helps!

Thank you, you did help. I just wanted to see what other people think on this topic.

What kind of problems do you have with it? Is it not interesting? Is it illogical? Tell me what's what then maybe I can give advice on that.

Cringy, just cringe. The characters aren't written right, and everything feels like it's from a children's book especially with the theme of the first book revolves around superheroes, a pretty childish topic that I expand on.
It's supposed to be dark but it just seems blah. The characters don't linger on topics or on the wrong topics, it's inconsistent. One moment Ember is acting how I wrote her then boom, she's a snarky sarcastic archer. I feel like it's not interesting enough for you to read book two, which is literally the big drop of the series. I feel like introducing the character's is taking too long but, then again I feel like it's just right. It's blah. I read everyone else's stories and it's just amazing and then there's mine. At this point, I'm working on Sycore's lore because that's better written than the main plot of book one.

What if you combined book one and two into one? So that the good stuff comes faster? Find a way to make the set up for the good stuff more efficient, and then you can eliminate the need for having a whole first book altogether. Also, every first draft is crap, don't worry about it! It's about being a good RE-writer in the end.

That was my original plan, to smack it all into one but, I wanted more emphasis on James who is an amazing character.
Book one is about Hunter and Ember as they struggle to find out who to trust and expanding on their relationship. Book two emphasizes on James' past on how he's able to overcome it and Audra who uncovers the lore of the Amulets. Book three expands on Audra's discovery and everyone finds out the truth, they're in a shitty draft of a series, Tom also get's more development and we see his true self. Sycore's past is revealed, he did have feelings, yay.
If I were to smack book one and two together I don't think it'll work. There is a drop in book one, James becomes suicidal and Hunter doesn't know what to do, a new villain is introduced causing a lot of trouble for Ember, Hunter starts putting pieces of the puzzle together, slowly. Ember is constantly fearing for her life. Hunter is in desperate need of advice as he tries to help Ember but James becomes a bigger problem every day, lashing out and fighting with everyone.
This isn't as big of a drop as book two but, I think this amount of information smashed with book two's titanic load of lore will not help.
Each book has a two-year timespan in between, showing the emotional and physical growth of the characters. James get's more emotional control, Hunter becomes more skilled in his powers, etc. Each book switches from two POVs going from Hunter and Ember, James and Audra, and Tom and Megan. Showing the differences in each person and showing who they really are.
I've already thought of that, I don't think it'll work.

It looks like you've got a pretty solid big picture for your series, that's really good. I still don't know what the end of my story is gonna be, and so I'm scared to start writing the beginning until I know for sure… Do you have a plot outline? If you do, is it scene by scene, chapter by chapter, or just major plot points?

Well, I haven't a written down the outline, I keep it in my head. (I should write it down though)
I use plot points, the big things and get to details later. If the details affect the character in a major way Ex. Person A confessed to person B, that still is a detail but I count it as a plot point. Does that make any sense?
Actually, I started writing book one before I even had a plot, it wasn't even supposed to be a book draft, just some random stuff I did. I expanded on it through the year (Yes, a whole year!) and boom, I had a solid series. Poor writing on my part and that's why it ended up so cringy, it was originally without a plot.

Every time I tried to start writing without a plot outline the whole thing seemed to spiral into disaster… now that I've been planning, it's MUCH better. It's easier to edit a plot outline than it is to edit an entire first draft. I think if you do just write down what you've got in your head, it'll be much easier to see everything. And then when you look at it, it'll be much easier to insert extra details and scenes and side plots and stuff!

Okay, i do have a lot of the plot written down, just not everything so I'll work on that. The plot isn't what I'm struggling with, it's more fitting the characters into the plot in a slow way. Not their development, if you get what I mean. And I didn't have alot written down, only 52 pages on Google Docs. (ten chapters) It wasn't complete so that's why i'm willing to scrap the draft.

Yeah you can write a plot however you want to, it can help you fit in the characters, too. And you don't have to scrap the whole thing, maybe just write a second draft?

I'd be too tempted to go back to my first draft and just fix it like i've been doing, less work. I think I'll scrap everything but the prologue, which is the only decent thing I have in there.

Good luck then! I scrapped the whole first draft of a book I started when I was 15… I'd gotten it to over 120,000 words, too. It's still sitting in Google Docs, untouched. Now the story is TOTALLY different.

Thanks for your help!

Haha guess I didn't really help… but glad I talked it out with you :P

Whatever you do, don't delete it. I did that with a couple of my stories, and I regret it soooo much.

Uh, little too late, I'm sorry. I'll keep that in mind from now on.