I am twenty chapters, 50K words, and 151 pages into the story of Project Red only to realize that I need to redo the whole story because I have SO MANY DAMN THINGS THAT NEED TO CHANGE! Not really, but I still need to change things.
I’ve changed the plot and I cannot work with whatever plot I am working on right now.
The story lacks total sense and is all over the place with the original idea. I got new ideas and I want to change it so badly.
Please for the love of all that is pure and sane tell me that I’m not the only damn writer who is feeling this way or has felt this way.
I think it helps if instead of creating a single plotline with details you add later you work backwards from the theme and the ending you want, if that makes sense? The characters and situations between characters are used as plot devices to push the theme/message. I used to struggle with writing a plotline for a fanfic I made and I realized halfway that the theme didn’t fit with the story I wanted to tell so I had to scrap the whole thing.
holy yap
For example, In the novel “Frankenstein” one of the many many themes was that boundless ambition and the reckless thirst for knowledge without a solid understanding of morality leads to the (physical and emotional) destruction of not only the protagonist Victor but the people around him. The monster created by Victor (the antagonist) is a kind of mirror that shows Victor his shadow traits. Essentially, once a theme is created characters and objects can act as symbols of the theme and the environment and scenes between characters can act as metaphors. Fire in the book is a direct metaphor of the pursuit of knowledge (the creature feels warmth from the fire, but when he attempts to touch it the fire burns him. The creature then becomes confused with it’s dual nature and wonders why it can cause both contentment and pain), and light is used as a marker of Victor’s emotional state (when there is a mention of light spilling into something or bursting into view, it is a positive manifestation of Victor’s future emotional state; When light is flickering, shifting or disappearing, it foreshadows Victor’s dark thoughts and suicidal ideation)
If you are a someone who writes spontaneously, I think it would help if instead of writing the outline first, you instead focus on the more vague aspects of your book like the tone, the theme (what is the important lesson(s) the protagonist learns? it could be something simple like the power of friendship or something more complex) or even the worldbuilding first before anything. It’s better to focus on the bigger things than get caught up in the specifics.
This might be counter-intuitive because most writers like to have everything planned out beforehand, but this can give you enough leeway to add or remove things from the plot like certain characters and subplots without undermining your entire novel.
If the foundation of the novel aka the plot aka the hero’s journey is shaky and not something you are 100% confident in, then you might loose time and energy on something you won’t like in the end.
Honestly, I’m not a professional writer by any stretch of the imagination; I only write and beta fanfiction not actual books. But I hope this helped ^^
If it’s lacking sense, it’s probably for the best (even if inconvenient) that you should have a go at rewriting. And no, you’re definitely not the only writer with this problem I’ve changed mine a lot so the original storyline looks nothing like that it is now
I’ve changed mine a lot so the original storyline looks nothing like that it is now