Once More with Feeling: Starting Over on a Half Finished Draft

Today I am starting over on a book I have about 20,000 words of already. I set it aside in November, sure it was a steaming pile of garbage. Happily I read through it a few weeks ago, and it's not as bad as I thought.

This last week or so I have been preparing to start over on a book I was in the middle of writing. It's no easy feat. In the interest of saving you some grief, here are some ideas/guidelines to help you along, should you find yourself treading a new path in an old forest. 

1. Figure out what went wrong the first time.
When deciding to rewrite a book, or pick up a half-finished manuscript, it's important to know why you put it down in the first place. You had a good reason to set the manuscript aside the first time, and sadly, the book elves have not fixed those problems while you were off doing other things. 


If the problem was something like being super busy or sick, chances are you're doing a little better than those of us who stopped because we didn't know enough of the plot to carry us through the rest of the book (like me). 

2. Make a plan of action.
If your problem turned out to be lack of conflict or stale characters, make a plan of action of how you're going to fix that. Develop the characters or plan out the plot a little bit. Anything to keep you from reading up to where you left off and saying, "Hmmmmm what now?" Hopefully the time off from your book has given you some distance. Now isn't the time to edit the life out of the half finished book, but to figure out why you staled out. Like any other outline or plan for a book, chances are it's going to change once you get back into the book, but that's okay. Having a plan now will keep you from losing steam later.


3. Figure out how much of the original draft is salvageable.
Here's where your personal preferences might vary, so take this with a huge grain of salt. You need to figure out how much of the draft to keep, but personally, I don't think now is the time to start editing. Editing a half finished book isn't really going to do anything for you, and you might get stuck on commas and word choice and less on finishing the story.

Your objective while looking over your partial draft is to figure out how much, if any, is worth saving. This will also depend on how far into the book you actually got before jumping ship. For me, that first 20,000 was pretty solid. I wrote the scenes I knew I needed to be there, but stalled out when I couldn't figure out how to get the characters where they needed to be next. 


BUT. I am also planning on changing the POV from multiple first to multiple third, adding in an extra POV, and changing one of the current POV character's personality. So while the scenes are okay, there's going to be a lot of changes to the original draft. 


I've gone back and forth whether or not I wanted to make those changes, or let what I have stand now and change it during editing. I finally decided to go ahead and rewrite the scenes. Because a) it's not that far along into the story and b) making those changes will give me a better feel for my characters as I see them now.


However, if all you're doing is adding in another character, and tweaking some events, and your half finished manuscript is something like 50,000 words long, you might consider simply letting it stand as is, and fixing the errors in revision. It's really a personal call. Consider how long your draft is now, and the magnitude of the changes you plan to make. For me, if I am changing a few characters around, and adding in another, that's a change of large magnitude. I like to see how the characters come together, and how they act towards one another. Skipping over the crucial introductory scenes has never worked well for me in the past (one time I decided to skip two crucial characters meeting each other, and went straight for when they were being the best of buds. Turns out, the characters couldn't stand each other. Had I started with their introductory scenes, I would have saved myself some grief).


4. Plan new stuff.
This sounds a little weird, but hear me out.


You're going to be working on a book you've already started. That initial spark of "this is the bestest idea EVAR" is probably gone. You've already stalled on the book once. Not such a great track record when going back to write a book.

So try to re-imagine the book now. Even if you've taken only a few months off, you're a different person than you were before. Don't assume you can simply sit down with the old outline and just punch out the book as you originally saw it. Figure out why you stopped in the first place, but also add some new spice to the book. Maybe a new character, or a new location. Allow yourself to brainstorm for new events and ideas. You're still in the creative process of writing a book, so allow yourself to be creative. Giving yourself some new and cool things to look forward to in the draft will help you from feeling bored with the book.

What about you? How do you approach starting over on a half finished project? Any advice for me? Other than lots of chocolate of course.

Writing in the Spirit of Discovery

Continuing the theme of finishing your first draft, let's talk about writing in the spirit of discovery. 

It's an idea that Laini Taylor, a super cool awesome writer came up with. You can read her post about it here.  Basically (for those too lazy to click on the link/enthralled with my post to leave) Laini talks about writing being a process of discovery. You're writing to find the story.

I think that's amazing, but hard to remember that while you're writing the book. I read this post a year ago, but I'd since forgotten about it. It's easy to think that you're going to sit down with your novel and write from Point A to Point B, and each scene is going to roll off your fingertips like water from a duck. I think there's almost an expectation for that to happen. Sure, we expect to spruce up the scenes during revision, but we assume that we know all the scenes that need to be in the book to make it work. Or that while you're writing by the seat of your pants (like I am now) all of the scenes you need will just magically come to you. Or that since you wrote the scene, it's vital to the story.


I love the idea of just sitting down and writing scenes for the fun of it. To see what happens between your characters. I don't know about you, but I used to just sit down and write whatever made me passionate. I would love to get back to that place, where the scene exists not just to get the characters from Point A to Point B, but because the ideas and settings set my imagination on fire. 


This brings me to another concept that Laini talks about, and I have mentioned in the past: Exploratory Drafts. I love this idea. Instead of saying first draft, it's just you experimenting with your story idea. You're allowed to write scenes that probably won't make the final cut. You might write out of order, or experiment with writing a type of scene you usually don't, like a really spicy sex scene, or a really action packed scene. By telling yourself that this draft is just an experiment, a dress rehearsal, you take the pressure of yourself to get it perfect the first time.

Ahhh perfectionism. That is something I battle with. I like things to be just so. First drafts are hard for me, because I expect everything to be perfect, and it's not. Or at least, first drafts are their own brand of perfect. As like Jane Smiley says, "Every first draft is perfect, because all it has to do is exist."


It's easy to feel like the book your writing is terrible because the scenes aren't flowing the way you imagined, but that's not true. Let's allow ourselves the joy and madness of imperfect first drafts, of exploratory drafts where we trek around places unknown. Ask yourself what if your character meet early in the story, and write that out. You might discover something wonderful in your process of playing around with the characters and plot.

So go now. Give yourself permission to write in the spirit of discovery. Write an exploratory draft. Have fun with it, and finish your novel. 


What do you do to loosen yourself up for a first draft?


P.S. I have fifty followers! Huzzah! Welcome to my blog, wonderfully awesome new followers!
What do you guys think I should do to commemorate the occasion?