Bad news on the writing front.
*deep breath*
My YA dystopian isn't working. I've been trying to finish it for the past week, but it's not coming together. The plot is convoluted. The motivations unclear. The entire thing is...kind of broken.
Kind of irrevocably broken.
Normally, I'd press ahead and try to fix things, but I think this novel has some serious flaws that can't be fixed with re-writing and editing. *le sigh*
BUT I do think some stuff can be salvaged. First, I really like the premise of the book. I feel really strongly about it. Second, I love the main character Anna and her romantic interest Zak. Although the novel itself is severely flawed, I think the romance between Anna and Zak is one of the few things that do work.
So I'm scrapping the unfinished novel and re-writing the whole damn thing. The basic plot will stay the same (Anna must bear the children for her sterile city) along with the romance, but pretty much everything else will change. The setting...the supporting characters...the side plots...all new.
A part of me is kind of freaked out. Holy crap! I'm throwing out 48,000 words and starting fresh? Am I insane?!
But a part of me is excited, too. I think I may have needed to write those 48,000 words to flesh out Anna and to get the voice of the story right. I'm also kind of stoked about the new direction the novel is taking--I actually thought about doing this a few months back but I decided against it since I had already written about 20,000 words. Ha! Maybe my initial instinct was right.
Have any of you guys scrapped a novel and re-written it from scratch? Any advice for me as I tackle this ordeal?
Have You Ever Re-written an Entire Novel?
