A fellow author posted this yesterday the 15 stages you go through when writing your first draft and I was like yeah this post is really good and I can totally relate but by the time I had finished doing some writing yesterday I was back to this is shit!
I am according to Scrivner 56,742 words in! and I generally have no idea whose done it and why! I have an idea of why she was murdered to get to my MC, because who ever did the murdering was sending my MC items to make sure she knew who the body was. Now my MC is back in London she needs to figure out who it is. But shouldn’t I have left things in the book earlier in regards to who did it!? Would the bad guy go after the MC family who she has uped and left at home, so shouldn’t they be in danger? I just generally have no clue what I am writing or why I am writing it. The bad guy has sent the MC all these things and now she is back in London has suddenly stopped!? and is no longer interested till the author works out who the bad guy is! ARG I need a holiday / some help / something! Trying to discuss stuff with the hubby about police procedure for a start is a none starter! But maybe I should just make contact with those people I have mentioned in a previous post. I need someone, I need help!
Have you ever pulled out a really old story and reworked it? Did it work out?
There is something I wrote years ago that I always think about, maybe it would work as a YA fiction, or maybe it is best left where it is as some of the characters have transposed into my current WIP
A Story About A Girl 
I’m more than 60 K into my current work and I’m feeling a lot like you. What is this even about? I have one old story I’m itching to get back to but can’t find the time.
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a former MI5 officer, who leaves her job to have a family etc, but then a body turns up and it’s her former best friend but she’s doesn’t know this straight away. So she disappears and goes back to MI5 to find the killer it’s a 3 pov thing hers, the local police who found the original body and are now looking for her cause she is missing and her hubby whose been left with the children. It make sense honest
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I’m so sorry to hear you’re hitting such road blocks. I’ve been there too. I ended up putting the book down for awhile and worked on my book, then picked it up again and things started falling into place for me again. I think it’s like when I’m painting a room. Sometimes I can’t tell if I just painted that part of the wall or not until I step back and look because I’m too close to it, if that makes sense. Good luck!
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oops, I should have said “worked on my other book”. 🙂
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hey,
Sorry for the late reply, had loads going on over the past two days.
maybe I should just keep going, but I just keep stalling thinking wtf am I doing lol.Maybe I should do my insurance study (haha)
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It’s always great when the writing flows, at a standard you’re happy with. Congratulations – I don’t think I’ve ever got as far as 56 thousand words into a novel!
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hey,
Sorry for the late reply, had loads going on over the past two days.
Haha me neither!
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I never know where things are going in my WIP. I pants my way through each time. One day I say I’ll plan, but most times I don’t.
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This was just an idea in my head that I had so I just kinds went with it, it’s just now i’m a bit like ahhh what am I doing…
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I suppose at some point you have to sit down with your story and decide who the killer is and why they committed the murder. 🙂
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I know why they did it, but I am concerned that we yet to come across them in the story and i am sorta thinking aren’t I supposed to be mentioning them already…
Thanks though
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I figure it’s a good thing you aren’t sure who killed your main character. That’s a sign your readers won’t know either, right?!
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good plan 🙂
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You’ll figure it out! Sometimes I have to go back and sprinkle things through, because I don’t know whodunnit until later either.
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may I’ll be okay to leave it till the end then 🙂 haha
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Aloha! Wow! I hate when I’m trying to figure out exactly what it is that I’m writing. Just hang in there and trust that you’ll get through it! Good luck, and welcome to the IWSG!
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🙂 hey and thanks
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Wow. That’s so many words. I’ve just started writing recently and can’t get past couple of thousand. 🙂
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i’m just not very good at getting to the point!
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You at least have the patience to write so much.
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The butler did it!
I’ve been there in the circular rounds of “how the freak am I going to work this out?” It usually ends with me scrapping several thousand words and trying a different angle. Do you have someone you can verbally talk things out with? I find that helps me.
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It is so funny when I try and talk it through with my hubby, as we are always both like I don’t know… It was so funny when we were discussing police procedure..
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Oh yeah, I’m @53k and wondering “is this even a story?” At some point, I always make the choice to either finish the chum bucket or can it. I’ve canned very few, so I just keep going onward. Sometimes novels make more sense after they’ve been written.
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but like life
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I wrote my first novel off the top of my head, making things up as I went along. It was such a mess to edit that I vowed to outline the next one. And I did, a little. But still, the editing goes on and on. Next time I’ll have a super outline. Really. I mean it.
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Sorry, not a mystery writer, although those issues could trip up any genre. Bounce some thoughts of your critique partners. Their suggestions might trigger the real answer.
Sorry so late, but welcome to the IWSG!
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