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New Idea That Might Destroy My Novel



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Sat May 14, 2016 6:43 pm
Lightsong says...



I've been working with my novel, Bad Lights, Good Lights for a while. I've a nice idea of the characters and the world building and the general plot. I'm currently on chapter nine, each chapter having 3000-4000 words in length.

Then, there's this new idea that I think is much better than the current one because it makes the characters less stupid, the plot more realistic and organized. The problem is, the idea can only be fitted in the starting chapters, because it's an introduction.

Right now, I'm torn. Should I continue writing this novel and see how it goes, or should I start anew with a better starting, that would change the future plots?
"Writing, though, belongs first to the writer, and then to the reader, to the world.

The subject is a catalyst, a character, but our responsibility is, has to be, to the work."

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Sat May 14, 2016 7:15 pm
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Vervain says...



My advice to you would be to take notes on this new idea of yours, and to try your best to incorporate its effects into the later chapters, if you can. Right now, you're working on a first draft, so the most important thing is to finish it before you go jumping into massive rewrites—if you don't finish the first draft, you won't have a clue where you're standing on the whole project.

In addition, you might find once you get to the end of the novel that you have an even better idea for how to make it coherent, or a better idea for how to rewrite it. If you rewrite it now, you're cheating yourself out of that opportunity, and you're more likely to get stuck in a loop of writing the first few chapters, getting an idea, and rewriting—until so much time has passed and you have one absolutely awesome first chapter but nothing to show for the rest of the novel.

It doesn't have to be a great first draft, just one that tells the story; the story could change fifteen times throughout said first draft. It could end up disjointed as you add in things you've thought of, and it could end up a collage of all the ideas you want to include rather than a blended whole, but it's usually better to finish the draft before enacting major rewrites.

This way, you'll also have a finished product to fall back on if your edits don't work initially! You can dive into the finished novel and tweak things in the plot, and if it doesn't work, you'll still have the original manuscript to go back to rather than a hypothetical in your head.
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Sat May 14, 2016 7:26 pm
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Lavvie says...



It sounds to me as if the new idea will bring in some pretty good changes. Better characters? More realistic plot? More organization? Those are all very important aspects of a successful novel, so when you look at it so simply, I wonder why you wouldn't just jump right in.

Yet, I do understand that the new idea requires you to do a major overhaul of what you already have written. This is both exhausting and time consuming, which are probably two of your biggest negative consequences. Also, the fact that it will change your future plots might mean that it will very much change a huge part of the novel itself and you will have to ask yourself if you are comfortable with these long-term and very permanent changes. You will have to be prepared to accept some character changes and, depending on how it goes, you may have to sacrifice certain parts of your story, potentially including characters. I also fear of author burn-out, where you get frustrated having to rewrite almost entirely, especially since you've already adapted and committed yourself fully to the path that Bad Lights, Good Lights is currently on.

What you could do is continue with what you're writing now but also start writing a different beginning somewhere else. See how you feel with it, because it might not work out and you might realize that you like the original idea much better. This way, you're still on track with the current novel, but you're not entirely putting the new idea off to the side. This is better than starting all from scratch, especially considering your uncertainty. In my own personal experience, this has worked and I actually ended up writing the original idea entirely since I just felt so much more in tune with it.

Let me know what you decided to do!


What is to give light must endure burning. – Viktor Frankl
  








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