I'm writing a book. It's not any good. I don't know what to do.
The thing is, I planned it all out in advance - not the way I usually do things - and even now I can see how that story would work, how exciting it would be, what potential it has.
But I'm almost 10 000 words into the story and it's no good. It's actually really boring. And I'm not sure if I can fix it.
The thing is, which I'm not sure whether people who don't write books actually understand - the thing is, the characters aren't playing ball. They don't fit into the plot. They're not who I intended them to be, but they are who they are and I'm damned if I can change that. (I'm not sure that actually makes sense, by the way - I'm unlikely to be more or less damned whether I can or can't change their minds!) Anyway, I don't know what to do.
Plenty of people have told me to give up. Unusual advice, but what they really mean is - write the story you want to write. If you google 'should I write a story that I think will be successful' the answer will be a resounding no. Write the story you have in you to write. Everything else will be crap. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but it turns out it's true. This, what I'm writing now, is crap. The story will do what it does and the characters will trail along after, miserable, like kids being dragged around a museum. God knows what the readers would make of that. If there's anything worse than being dragged around a boring museum, it's probably watching kids being dragged around a boring museum, whining and fidgeting and spoiling it for everyone else.
The thing is, I always knew this was going to be hard. Writing to a plan is so not me. I understand why the plan was necessary - you see, someone important was interested in this book and they wanted to see how it would work out. But I knew from day one that writing a plan would take all the fun out of it for me - because in writing, as in reading, the thrill is in finding out what's going to happen next. In seeing characters develop and plots unfold. All that's gone when you know the ending from the start. It's much worse than reading the last page before you've finished chapter one - I've been known to do that sometimes and I can't say it's ever spoiled a book for me because the joy is finding out how someone got from A to B. I know all that with this book and it's officially spoiled. All the dramatic bits, like the big battle scene on the beach, our heroine wearing her wedding dress and blowing monsters to bits, are completely undone by the fact that none of it is a surprise - not her strength, or the wedding, or the arrival of the monsters in the first place.
But this felt like my big chance. Like, if I turn it down, there won't be another opportunity. Like I'm saying 'thanks, but no thanks', which is not at all what I'm trying to say. And so that's the thing.
The thing is, I planned it all out in advance - not the way I usually do things - and even now I can see how that story would work, how exciting it would be, what potential it has.
But I'm almost 10 000 words into the story and it's no good. It's actually really boring. And I'm not sure if I can fix it.
The thing is, which I'm not sure whether people who don't write books actually understand - the thing is, the characters aren't playing ball. They don't fit into the plot. They're not who I intended them to be, but they are who they are and I'm damned if I can change that. (I'm not sure that actually makes sense, by the way - I'm unlikely to be more or less damned whether I can or can't change their minds!) Anyway, I don't know what to do.
Plenty of people have told me to give up. Unusual advice, but what they really mean is - write the story you want to write. If you google 'should I write a story that I think will be successful' the answer will be a resounding no. Write the story you have in you to write. Everything else will be crap. I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but it turns out it's true. This, what I'm writing now, is crap. The story will do what it does and the characters will trail along after, miserable, like kids being dragged around a museum. God knows what the readers would make of that. If there's anything worse than being dragged around a boring museum, it's probably watching kids being dragged around a boring museum, whining and fidgeting and spoiling it for everyone else.
The thing is, I always knew this was going to be hard. Writing to a plan is so not me. I understand why the plan was necessary - you see, someone important was interested in this book and they wanted to see how it would work out. But I knew from day one that writing a plan would take all the fun out of it for me - because in writing, as in reading, the thrill is in finding out what's going to happen next. In seeing characters develop and plots unfold. All that's gone when you know the ending from the start. It's much worse than reading the last page before you've finished chapter one - I've been known to do that sometimes and I can't say it's ever spoiled a book for me because the joy is finding out how someone got from A to B. I know all that with this book and it's officially spoiled. All the dramatic bits, like the big battle scene on the beach, our heroine wearing her wedding dress and blowing monsters to bits, are completely undone by the fact that none of it is a surprise - not her strength, or the wedding, or the arrival of the monsters in the first place.
But this felt like my big chance. Like, if I turn it down, there won't be another opportunity. Like I'm saying 'thanks, but no thanks', which is not at all what I'm trying to say. And so that's the thing.
