Starting over again, again.

[sashamerideth]

I am a new writer, had my first story idea about a year and a half ago, did nothing for a while then started writing it. I got 10k words in and didn't like it, so chucked it. I started it over again, none of my original story remained but I thought the new was better. I am now 40k words through a first draft with some revision, with a goal of 70-90k. I just donn't like my main character, he has no drive, no reason for living and no redeeming qualities. I love my secondary characters and I really love my antagonist and his accomplice. I have bits of short stories about a few people and they have been liked by the people that have read them, on other forums so not just my friends who really aren't that into my stuff, can tell by their faces when I start talking about writing ideas and stuff.

I know my world pretty much inside and out, what drives people, their culture and struggles, but could always expand more. I know my current story is not working for me, I don't know if I can salvage it or if I should just scrap it and start over again with almost all of the same people and a slightly different starting point.

What about you? What do you do when the story just is not working?

I have had a few people read it and they say for early draft stuff it isn't too bad but that there is a lot there that I am just not tapping. Can easy send it to any of you to read and stuff if it would be worth keeping with. I just don't know which way to go now.

 

[Sigillimus]

Maybe it isn't the story that is your problem, but perhaps the main character. You say you don't like your main character, which might lead to the entire story growing weaker because of it. If you are having more fun with a certain character, perhaps you should find some method of shifting the focus of the story toward them instead of on the person you don't feel has those qualities you're looking for.

 

[Chilari]

As Sigillimus said, it seems like the main character is the problem. You say he has "no drive, no reason for living and no redeeming qualities" - and that doesn't make for a compelling character.

How you should proceed depends on what you want. If you want to keep the charatcer, you need to change him. He needs two key things: a goal to work towards, and something with which readers can identify. Sometimes these are the same thing, but not always. A character without motivation is dull. A reader cannot root for a character if the character isn't rooting for anything themselves. What your character is working towards could be almost anything: simple survival, finding an object, meeting his hero, taking revenge for wrongs done to him, rescuing the princess, fulfilling his duty to his people or his family, returning home after a long time away (one of the oldest motivations in fiction), dying with honour and glory, becoming famous, etc etc etc. A stated goal early on gives the readers a reason to keep reading, to find out if that goal is achieved and what obstacles present themselves on the way.

Sometimes the motivation is enough for readers to identify with a character, if they can sympathise or emphathise with that motivation, or if it runs parallel to their own moral or political ideals. But sometimes it is not, particularly if the ideals behind the motivation aren't universal. So the second thing you may need, as I said above, is some aspect with which the reader can identify. This isn't quite the same as a redeeming feature, but there may be overlap. If you think about the emotions you feel often - and that could be anything from the sense of accomplishment at something done right to self-doubt when confronted with a task that seems too big, and anything in between (joy, envy, fear, and so on) - you should soon be able to identify something which readers may identify with too. It may not necessarily be a positive emotion; but if you present something like doubt or fear in an endearing and honest way, in which the character isn't whiny and does make attempts to overcome it, then it can create a very strong bond between character and reader (not to mention you as the writer).

You also have the option of making one of the other characters your main focus, or writing out your current main character altogether. And if none of that works, it might be time to put the whole novel aside for now and work on something else. Stories don't always work out. Six years ago I was writing a story I thought was brilliant, but I never finished it. Reading it back recently, I can see how trite and cliched it was, though I thought I was being original at the time, and how the character relationships just did not work. Since then I have begun dozens of stories, gotten past the first 10,000 words in about eight, written as many as 50,000 words in three and completed one; and I am planning to rewrite that. What I'm working on now is something I began working on nearly two years ago, left alone and returned to many times. So if it really isn't working, don't sweat it; it's all good practice as you work towards the bestseller inside you waiting to get out.

As my dad once said to me, all experience is good experience, even if it's bad. When he said it, he meant it in terms of life in general, but it applies to writing too. Even if what you're writing isn't any good, you're still learning from it; and that makes it good experience.

 

[Derin]

You could, as the above posters said, change your main character. Or if you really want to use him, you could use him as a viewpoint character for the other, more interesting characters (this works best in first person) -- have him continually complain about the idiots who are draggin him halfway across the world, etc. If you give him an interesting voice he doesn't have to have a compelling personality (although compelling characters are much, much easier to work with).

 

[Kate]

You're in good company, sashamerideth. I start again all of the freaking time! I'm not sure it's a bad thing though, sometimes we just don't start things on the right track and by going back and changing things we can learn to see what works, what doesn't and more importantly why.
Different ways I've re-started and changed things around that have worked well in a few different things are, changing character details, changing character POVs, switching from 1st to 3rd person and vice versa, experimenting with tense, shifting the story back and forward in time, adding new characters, removing existing characters. Lots of things!

Starting again doesn't mean that you're going backwards. But be careful of falling into the sticky trap of starting, over and over again and never finishing. (and I should take my own advice on that one too!)

Best of luck!

 

[sashamerideth]

I think that I will write some more short stories, maybe one of those character autobiographies for my main character, see if I can redefine him.

He is a 16 year old, on the run with a band if criminals. If I know how he got there and what he wants once he is free of them I may be able to keep him. I did an autobiography for another character and he is a lot deeper and more interesting than I thought he was, later in my work he becomes a protector for my main character.

No matter what I do it looks like a total rewrite is in my future. I do have some pretty good stuff I think, even after reading it again after several months away from it. There is a lot of bad in there too but at least I am seeing it now.

 

[Telcontar]

It was said plenty above, and I'll say it as well. If the author doesn't even like his main character, who will? Give that man/woman/child/thing a major overhaul, pronto.

 

[gavintonks]

I go and lie down and meditate on the story and just think about it and relive the scene over and over until something resolves itself and I get excoted again

 

[sashamerideth]

Ok, here we go. A revision of my main character. Let me know what you think of his new autobiography.

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I have been here for four months, no, five? I am not sure anymore. They took me, my kid sister and my mom a year or more ago. Something in my genes said I wasn't a normal, now my whole family will die. Hell, they may already be dead. When I was moved to Camp Epsilon Sigma Five, the others went to some other camp... there are no women here, just men and boys.

All of them are like me, something in their DNA makes them different. I don't know how many of us there are here, a few hundred maybe? Packed in so tight,the Smell of death, decay and human waste still makes me sick. When the guards come, they have on those decontamination suits and flamethrowers to burn the bodies of the dead. I am sure I can hear them laughing. I hate moving the dead bodies, but it is better to move them than to be them. I wish they would find some other way to kill us all, that's what they want after all, to "cleanse the world of all abnormals" and make the world safe from our evil powers.

My tentmate, he seems unaffected by all this. He just cuddles his teddy bear and reads his book "The Life and Enlightenment of Samuel Hardin" a book so deep it could kill a man with just a page of text alone. This giant has never spoken, and as cruel as the guards are, they have never tried to take his book or his bear away.

I hope my mom and sister are ok. I don't want to think about what life is like for them. Hopefully they have died without suffering. To live like this... I am too young to die, but at least I would stop waiting.

If you find this scrap of paper, remember what your kind did, how many of us you tortured and killed just so everyone can stay normal. It is evolution.

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That is my short autobiography for my new main character, just before his tentmate kills a guard and takes my MC with him in an escape attempt. New direction but I get to keep a lot of my story. I think I will rewrite it from a 3rd person limited, focused on the tentmate.

 

[Chilari]

Well, you've exaplined some of the plot, some of the social background - it seems very reminiscent of Nazi concentration camps, and I'm guessing that's what you were going for - and to a certain extent the characters recent experiences, his current state of mind (lost all hope), and his fears and how he reacts to them. However, while it may be a very personal account in tone and subject matter, this is a snapshot. It is how he feels at one instance. And such a moment is hardly representative of who he is or who he is going to become. Perhaps if you outline his personal story arc in about five paragraphs, from your own point of view and not his, along with any key emotional and personal developments (eg, regains hope, decides to never give up, learns the value of friendship - stuff like that). And THEN, once you know how his character develops and changes, write a few short passages, a paragraph each, on how he feels at some of those key moments.

When I struggle with how a character is feeling at any given moment, what I do open a new document and write a scene with my author-insert character Chilari, who in the context of the scene is a goddess (what? I DID create the universe) and knows everything. She talks to the character and teases what they feel out of them, and why. I use the same trick for any plot problem I have too; when my main character is working out the big plan, which I don't yet know myself, I'll use Chilari and have the two of them bounce ideas back and forth until I have the plan I want, then return to the novel and let the plan develop organically as the plot dictates and allows.