Trail of Abandoned Manuscripts

[Philip Overby]

How many novels have you abandoned? How many promising concepts tossed for whatever reason? Is there a way to go back to the proverbial "drawer" and dig it out and start writing it again?

Has anyone had experience going back to an old manuscript that you'd abandoned and re-working it? If so, how do you ease back into it? Did it fit like an old glove or is it uncomfortable and ill-fitting?

I've come across this quandary as of late, as I'm planning to abandon some projects in order to work on something more fruitful. However, I plan to come back to this project in the near future (say 2 or 3 months) and finish it. Come hell or high water.

I have at least 4 or 5 of these that I am planning to resuscitate soon, but I'm not sure how to go about doing it. Has my style changed to much? Have a grown too distant from the original flow? Is it worth it anymore? These are questions I'm asking myself.

Thoughts about how to revive a forgotten manuscript and make it tick again?

 

[Chilari]

I actually keep a catalogue of stories. I've been doing it for a few months and have added every story started in the last three years that got further than an idea - anything I planed in detail, wrote the first chapter of, etc. About 7 in all. I note the title, a brief description, and the main character(s). This will enable me to pick up anything previously dropped more easily if I decide in the future that I like the concept.

I have in fact done that with one story so far. A story that started, in fact, as a joke mocking a certain motif my fiance hates, then becmae a webcomic idea from back when I used to spend a lot of time with webcomickers went through several phases. For a while I was going to write it as a novel, then I went back to a webcomic, then I tried writing it as a TV series (that didn't last long). I couldn't quite shake this story. In October I rewrote it as a short story for Myths Inscribes, hated it, and then wrote just the first scene, liked it, submitted it, edited it with Ravana, and now I love it.

Mostly, though, I think the abandoned concepts are in that state because I lack confidence in my ability to tell them as compelling story. Some I will never return to, but some I could see working if only I could make it work, hence recording them in my catalogue of stories.

In terms of how to do it, from my very limited experience of it, the key point that took this story of mine from not working to working was to condense two characters, a wizard and his widowed sister, into one: a widowed witch. Once I'd done that it fell into place.

 

[Zireael]

I've resuscitated my old (2004 or thereabouts) novel-length Forgotten Realms fanfic. Or rather, I put the better parts up as pdfs on my site. Then I sat down, took good ideas (20% of it) and simply dropped or excised everything that was bad (80% of it). The good ideas are slowly being reused in my original story, 'Tales of Cathair Cothrom'.

 

[Ireth]

I've abandoned one manuscript so far after a prologue and three chapters. It was riddled with cliches and just failed to thrill me after a while. Though there are one or two ideas from it still lurking around my head that I might be able to recycle... the only male heir to a country's throne finding out he's a bastard, for one. That could be interesting.

 

[Butterfly]

Depends how old it is and how long ago you last looked at it.

If it's one of the very things you ever wrote and didn't complete, I think the way to go is to read it through while making notes on characters, plot points, goals and motivations. Put it all in an outline, and write it from scratch.

Otherwise it's a matter of reading, editing, redrafting if it's something that is not that old.

 

[Leif Notae]

Oh, you mean the literary graveyard? Yeah, I have my unmarked grave they all tend to rise out of whenever they need brains.

I took my first NaNo project and broke it into three parts: 2 novellas, 1 short (50k) novel.

 

[MadMadys]

I prefer 'hibernation' to 'abandoned'. I have a couple stories where I wrote some things, fiddled with POV, characters, setting, etc. but never really continued. Most of them I plan to come back to at some point but for now I'll let them rest.

 

[SeverinR]

I haven't buried any yet.
Most are set aside, good foundations but just need something more.

They are in literary coma, I haven't pronounced them yet. More then likely I will use them as organ donors. Take good parts and slip them into a story.
But until then I have them, possibly some day I can breathe life back into the story.

 

[Twook00]

I have never actually finished a story. I've written maybe a couple from beginning to end, usually random and always very short, but I've never gone through the revision or submission process.

I once started a story in 3rd grade. It was supposed to be one page long. I got, like, eleven pages in and realized I wasn't anywhere close to being finished. So I threw it away and told my teacher I lost it.

And I've been doing that ever since...

 

[Penpilot]

I've got one massive 270k novel that I abandoned after the 3rd draft. All the threads of the story got into a tangled mess and I didn't have the skills to fix it.

But since then, I've thought about how I would deal with things if and when I go back, and I've come up with this strategy. I haven't actually put it into action yet, but it may help.

First from memory only, do an outline of the story you remember. Do not go back and read any of the original material first because that will just put you back in your old frame of mind, errors and all.

Second, skim read the old story to pick out world building stuff and good points of conflict that would fit with your new outline.

Third, throw everything else away and start again with the bits you've picked out. A cautious BUT. If you think some of the original material can be salvaged, I would suggest only salvaging the framework and writing new prose. Chances are you're a totally different writer now so mixing old and new prose could make the book read inconsistent.

 

[Addison]

I've abandoned one manuscript in my writing life. Luckily I kept it on file. Because I brought it back to life, given it a nip, tuck, makeover and it's a brand new story. Don't throw anything away. Set aside, sure, but never crumple up and make two-point shots to the trash bin. They can still be useful.

 

[B_B_Baker]

I keep mine in a file depending on what their genre, subject or type is. I have a few unfinished which I've come back to, but one in particular keeps giving me trouble so it's staying on the shelf for a while longer.

One other I want to finish after the current WiP, as it feels better now that I'm writing something similar in theme.

When I'm trying revive a manuscript I go back to the music I was listening to during that time and I don't write for at least a few days while my head gets back into it while listening.

 

[Philip Overby]

I only really have one that I'm thinking of at the moment. I really, really like it, but the multiple POVs got side-tracked and need some wrangling. I have sense taken to working on a one POV story, not as epic in scope, and it's turning out a lot better for me. Why? Because I take each scene one at a time instead of worrying about, "How will this effect...?" or "Does this connect with...?" Sure, it'll still have kinks because I'm pantsing a bit more than I'd like (ugh...why do I do that?) but I'm doing outlining as I go, which helps.

In any case, I think re-outlining will help me when I go back to my bigger project later.

First from memory only, do an outline of the story you remember. Do not go back and read any of the original material first because that will just put you back in your old frame of mind, errors and all.

Second, skim read the old story to pick out world building stuff and good points of conflict that would fit with your new outline.

Third, throw everything else away and start again with the bits you've picked out. A cautious BUT. If you think some of the original material can be salvaged, I would suggest only salvaging the framework and writing new prose. Chances are you're a totally different writer now so mixing old and new prose could make the book read inconsistent.

All good points, Penpilot. I'll make sure to keep these in mind.

 

[ThinkerX]

Well, Phil...you pretty much stated the reason I came to this board.

I used to write a lot. I'd have an idea, write up a scene for it, and then drop it for any of a dozen reasons. I had bits and pieces of upwards of half a dozen unfinished novels. Then, for a number of reasons, there was a long period when I just did not write, except for very short pieces to make a point on some debate site or other.

A few years ago this changed when I took a job I did not care for one bit. I needed the income, but I didn't need the other stuff that went along with it, so I'd come home seriously irked. So to work off my frustration without freezing (winter in Alaska), I found myself writing again, dusting off notions I hadn't done anything with in years. That story was 'Labyrinth'. To my astonishment, I managed to finish a passable draft. I began to wonder a bit about my other stories, and dug through piles of floppy disks, eventually selecting half a dozen I thought 'fixable'. Shortly afterwards, while looking for a writing site which vanished into cyberspace most of a decade ago, I found this place.

My goal is still pretty much the same: get those half dozen stories finished - though I've added a few new ones since then as well.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Grief I must have eighty odd novels in various states of incompletion. None of them are abandoned though. Just sitting on my computer until I can once more find the muse within me to tackle them again. And funnily enough, just at the moment their time is coming. (For at least one of them). I just finished one book and pubbed it, and as always after doing that I find myself at a loose end, unable to settle on any one book. So they're all getting reread again, until I can knuckle down on just one.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[tlbodine]

I can safely say that every story I've ever abandoned turned out to be better than I'd remembered it being. Everything I've ever quit working on in overdramatic despair turned out to be pretty decent. So I'm a big fan of saving things in a "morgue" of sorts so I can resurrect them later or repurpose them into totally new things.

My favorite of these. When I was in college, I wrote a really pretentious "literary dystopia"....thing. Its plot was full of holes and the premise was lacking substance (it was pretty much a "dystopia for the sake of being a dystopia" and reflected a very naive world-view of my old teenage self). I spent about five years on the thing and taught myself how to write, so by the time I was done with it, I was a much better writer than I was in the beginning -- but the story was awful. So I set it down for a few years.

It haunted me during that time, though. The characters were still alive in my brain and had a story they wanted to tell. My old themes, however clumsy they were, wanted to be given a proper chance. And I realized that what I really needed to do was scrap the setting and make it into a fantasy. So I sat down to figure out how exactly I could do that -- and it came super easily. You just never know what might happen.