Post by Amaranth on Jan 15, 2011 23:28:18 GMT -5
Here's the short version of where I am, in terms of my writing:
So I wrote a novel a couple years ago. I only recently finished editing it down to a potentially publishable length and am relatively satisfied with it in terms of content. I wrote a sequel I hated and then started writing another one I like.
But the first book kind of picks up in the beginning, and I always wanted to do the first part: How the protagonist fell from grace, became a PI, and was exposed to the supernatural. I just...Couldn't write it at first. Then, it flowed well. Really well. I have a 40K story that is almost exactly what I wanted to do, and everyone who has read both thinks this is better and probably what I should lead with. So I'm working on a companion piece, hoping I can merge the two and create soemthing actual novel length.
That's where the "repetition" part comes in. Technically, it's both repetition and continuity. The bad guys in my "prequel" (for lack of a better word) and my novel are established as different and I certainly have no problem with that. But I find my antagonist's MO slipping to similar means, and keep having to censor myself. Like, that problem is especially dumb in the instance of "If this happened before, why not assume it's the same guy?"
Part two is kind of, like...Well, established canon, so to speak. Like, the idea was that the stuff that happened in the full novel was an escalation, above and beyond what she had dealt with prior. So I keep getting grand ideas that would work...If I completely revise the premise of the novel I wrote. So I keep folding back into a repetitive loop.
Anyone else get a sort of "writer's rut?" Anyone got methods for breaking it? I know there's something out there between "doing the same thign again" and "ridiculously over the top."
So I wrote a novel a couple years ago. I only recently finished editing it down to a potentially publishable length and am relatively satisfied with it in terms of content. I wrote a sequel I hated and then started writing another one I like.
But the first book kind of picks up in the beginning, and I always wanted to do the first part: How the protagonist fell from grace, became a PI, and was exposed to the supernatural. I just...Couldn't write it at first. Then, it flowed well. Really well. I have a 40K story that is almost exactly what I wanted to do, and everyone who has read both thinks this is better and probably what I should lead with. So I'm working on a companion piece, hoping I can merge the two and create soemthing actual novel length.
That's where the "repetition" part comes in. Technically, it's both repetition and continuity. The bad guys in my "prequel" (for lack of a better word) and my novel are established as different and I certainly have no problem with that. But I find my antagonist's MO slipping to similar means, and keep having to censor myself. Like, that problem is especially dumb in the instance of "If this happened before, why not assume it's the same guy?"
Part two is kind of, like...Well, established canon, so to speak. Like, the idea was that the stuff that happened in the full novel was an escalation, above and beyond what she had dealt with prior. So I keep getting grand ideas that would work...If I completely revise the premise of the novel I wrote. So I keep folding back into a repetitive loop.
Anyone else get a sort of "writer's rut?" Anyone got methods for breaking it? I know there's something out there between "doing the same thign again" and "ridiculously over the top."