Does anyone else ever get to the point where they hate some things they wrote, that if they wrote it again they would do it totally differently?
I found an old short story I wrote, when I was like seventeen. Even though it was science fiction and fantasy, I always had the quirk of making it a scenario we are already familiar with:
- For example, a fight at the dinner table.
- Or, a bullying incendent at school.
- Or, getting lost walking home from school.
Yet it seems like I almost relied in this sense of familiarity almost to much. It's only when you elaborate further, like when you add in the army of talking rats, or being sent to hell that it really has a remote resemblance to SF and F.
My taste in conflict has changed to. As a reader I much prefer the hint of conflict being there at first, and the conflict gradually becoming more pronounced. And I hate conflict for sake of conflict, the source of conflict has to make sense in context even if it's "nonsense context" like Alice In Wonderland.
I never submitted anywhere, cause so far I haven't found a story I'm satisfied with.
so are you going to write it again?
Do it! Write it again!
I might try to, though I'm not sure how well I'm going to do.
I'm going to have to tweak the introduction, a bit info dumpy.:P
Sometimes it makes sense to re-write it from scratch. If you find that you really like the idea, but not at all how you executed it, you could read it once to remind yourself what you like, then write it all again in a fresh go. Think about it like talking to your family at Thanksgiving - the first time Aunt #1 asks you what you've been up to since last Thanksgiving, you sort of fumble around, talk a bit too much, forget to tell her something interest, and just generally make stuffing of it. But, by the time you've done it a few more time (and have a glass or two of wine, a plate or two of tryptophan), you're at ease enough to give Uncle #3 a shiny, polished year-in-review - just the highlights, maybe a joke or two, and an ending that wraps it up before pie time. You don't necessarily want to keep working on the transcript of that first attempt, but instead take those core ideas and give them a different take.
Also, just in case you really hate it and don't want to rewrite it, there's no shame in trunking a story. Not everything we write is great, good, or even passable. Sometimes the value in writing a story is to work out the ways *not* to write a story. So when you look back and say, "Oh, I definitely dont like that" it's as important as saying "Oh, I do like that." It doesn't *feel* as good, granted, but it's important.
I say, the fact that you can pick it up and see what's wrong with it, stuff you couldn't see when you were too close to it, that shows you're learning and honing your craft. And that's pretty cool, no?
Unless you just hate it because you wrote it, in which case...it's still worth it to rewrite it so you hate it less and less.
I recently de-cluttered my house and found a novel draft I wrote twenty years ago. Oh yes some parts made me cringe but I was impressed with other parts of it, they were better than I expected.
Coming back to it after time has passed allows you to see it as a reader would. I would try to set aside all the "shoulds" in your mind. Just sit down and work with it, fix it. (after saving a copy, of course!)
After you get as far as you can with it, take a giant deep breath and post it for critique. I think that good stories are usually not written but re-written.
Well the big thing was this big gigantic info dump about war rationing and stuff.
What was I thinking? That a short fiction reader like me would have the patience with it.:/
Still not sure it's great, but don't hate it as much now.
Thanks if I didn't say so.
Ok so I'm not sure if this is the simular in any way but this is what I've done. I worked on a story for months. It was one of my chapter book romantic stories. I began to hate it because it felt like it wasn't going anywhere. I stopped writing it for months maybe even a year. I found it on my hard drive and thought to myself I should check it out. I began to read it and thought wow this is good, why did I hate it? I could add to it now. Then it happened again. I began to hate it saved it to my usb port (my pc was acting out so I thought it would be safer there). I should check it out, it's been long enough I can't remember what I added to it.
Thats sort of my situation with the stories that became The Hatchling Saga actually.
I had various short stories at that point (about 33 or so if I remember correctly) and was not really sure what to do with them, as the short story market was dead, and I ended up wanting to try out the functionality of using an intermediary character, that literally goes into the worlds read to her.
In fact this one story I'm referring to, I'm considering name changes and completely absorbing it into the chapter book collection I'm working on at the moment.
Nothing like opening with a dinner meatball fight.
Theory, you might be too close to the story and giving it space sometimes seems to open up your mind more.
Definitely more than a theory. I used to hate the idea of editing my work.
As much as I hate to quote Lincon Park,
I hate my rhymes, but hate everyone else's more.
