Ask This Question If Your Story “Sucks” Rather Than Pressing Delete
Don’t get overwhelmed and downtrodden by your emotions. Do this instead.
I am sure all of us have gone through this moment:
You completed the first draft of your novel (or article). This idea had felt too interesting to not write about and check your luck. You pin your hopes on it to earn a million claps.
The opposite happens when you read it.
The prose is not as sophisticated or easy to read. Chronology has gone to hell. The execution of the brilliant idea is terrible. You hate your work.
And so, your finger hovers above the delete button.
But wait!
However much you are disgusted, you shouldn’t give up so easily.
Why should the time and energy you spent get wasted when I have a way to make the novel better?
>>The Prose: Don’t bother at all
Nobody gets his or her writing right the first time. Even if the person is Margaret Mitchel.
Read that again.
Every author writes a rough draft first to structure the scenes before getting to polishing every corner.
The draft system is like making a sandcastle.
First, you collect the sand in the bucket. Then you carefully flip it and dump the sand to get a favourable shape.
You shouldn’t worry about the prose until you are sure about the structure of events.
My favourite solution to combat this problem comes from Linda Caroll’s advice. (You can apply this to your article as well.) To improve your prose, read every line and make them as simple as you can.
The devil is in the details.
>>The Structure: Rewrite it
You can feel unsatiated by the structure of your piece.
Maybe you are frustrated that you cannot follow the 3-arc structure perfectly. Maybe the conflict and the clues you meticulously sprinkled across don’t feel as smooth as you expected them to be.
A voice urges you to dump the idea and jump on the next pretty one.
Don’t! Here’s the solution you were wanting for a long.
Rewrite the second draft of your novel from scratch. That’s right. No more overwriting. Open a new word document and begin typing again.
The first draft you start somewhere and you keep going. The second draft you just make sure that everything is what you meant, and you notice the things that you miss as a reader.
And the things that you miss as a reader, you fix as a writer.
— Neil Gaiman
When you write the whole thing again, you get various other ideas to improve your original idea. You get ways to make the plot complex, add conflict, and smoothen the structure.
You get an opportunity to hate the idea a li’l less.
>>The Characters: Add quirks
Maybe the problem with your piece is the characters. They come as too flat, too boring, and too unrelatable to read.
When you rewrite your book, try to make them and their actions interesting to a degree higher.
Give some of them funny quirks like snorting or slouching that you frequently mention. Make the dialogue engaging and fun to read. Wonder about their past lives and sprinkle hints of it throughout the story.
Let them evoke emotions like anger, hate, love, and pity in the readers.
(Here’s a guide to building better characters.)
Some end words…
Even if you are having fun with the process, it won’t guarantee that the result matches your expectation. Yet, don’t give up that easily on your idea.
Rather, ask,
“How can you make this work?”
Never kill an idea, because you can’t reach perfection in the first go. Help it become its best self.
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