inverarity | WHY DO MY PLOTS HAVE TO MAKE SENSE?

So, first of all, I do not know what my problem is lately with distractions, but if I sit at a computer, I cannot spend more than a few minutes doing solid work before I check email, hit the forums, etc. Really, really must do what I used to do, which is go spend all day at a coffee shop or library when I really want to get some uninterrupted writing done. Or just pull the router cable out of the wall.

I told myself I was so close to the end of my novel, I am going to finish it this weekend, dammit! And I put in some pretty respectable word count — almost 10,000 words over three days.

The rough draft now stands at 98,000 words and I am working on the final scene of the final chapter.

And yet, I could not make it to the finish line.

Why? Because to get to that point, I had to keep telling myself: "Write! Write! Just write!" Even though I saw one plot hole after another gaping open before me. Even as certain critical connecting elements in the climax... didn't connect. Even though those wonderful, dramatic, tear-jerking, heroic scenes that I have been writing the entire book to arrive at begin to fall apart as soon as you look at the events that led up them and start asking questions: "Wait a minute, why doesn't she...?" "Why don't they just...?" "But there is no reason why --"

Dammit, it would be so much easier if I could just be one of those authors who hand-waves shit like that and assumes readers won't notice (or that those who do won't care).

As I understand it (I have never done NaNoWriMo) the method that is actually encouraged to get through NaNoWriMo is pretty much "Write!Write!Write!" Don't stop and think about plotting, don't work out details, don't plan, don't outline shit, don't worry about a suspension of disbelief that crashes and burns and falls straight to hell, because you can fix all that in the revisions.

When I write books (speaking only of fan fiction, for the moment), I have had to go back and revise things (obviously). But I am a relentless self-editor, so to be honest, I've rarely had to go back and rip out major parts of a book to be completely rewritten. Like, my nightmare is reaching the end and then realizing that I have to rip out the middle third or so and rewrite it because a major subplot is completely broken, which I believe is what J.K. Rowling said happened to her while she was writing Goblet of Fire. I have a few times deleted or rewritten an entire chapter, and I often move big chunks of text (scenes, subplots, chapters) around, but I've never gotten to the end and then banged my head on the wall realizing "This. Doesn't. Work." I've worried that I will find things that don't work, and of course I pick up lots of things that do need to be fixed (and so do my betas), but so far — no wholesale rewrites.

I also understand it's kind of routine for professional authors to have to chop 40,000 words or so out of a 120,000-word manuscript to get it published. I can't even

So anyway, I am looking at my ending and thinking "This. Doesn't. Work." And I am so frustrated, because I really wanted to be done with this!

(The rough draft, I mean. Plenty of editing and reediting and then betaing yet to do, before I even think about calling it "Ready for submission.")

I am not sure if I should just keep pressing forward, or take a step back and do some more plotting/outlining to work out the ending, or put it on a shelf for a while and work on something else (like AQ5 or HHU or one of the other OF ideas I have had rolling around lately).

I wish OF were ready for betaing, because then I could get someone else's input — are these things I think don't work really a problem, or is it just me?

[Poll #1859716]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

My first novel was meticulously plotted in advance; my current is a pantser. I seem to have the same problem with both styles, that is, changing my mind about small details and having to go back and fix things because of it. I couldn't get far enough into the revisions on the first one to tell if I had a problem with plotholes.

Right now I'm involved in the "31 Plays in 31 Days" project -- write a play a day for the month of August. Kind of reminds me of a NaNoWriMo for plays. The idea is the same -- just WRITE WRITE WRITE! Most of my stuff is turning out pretty dumb, but there are a few germs of ideas I might further develop in the future. In general I think free writing like that is helpful for me when I'm stuck or I don't have a good idea of how to move forward. I tend to generate a lot of rough with a few diamonds.

If I HAVE an idea though, I try to outline and plan. I learned the hard way. When I was a teenager I launched into a massive space opera novel that turned out roughly 800 pages...so full of plotholes it was like Swiss Cheese. It's horrid when I go back and read it now.

I know that some authors work closely with their beta readers on their stories as they go, to get feedback on what is working and what isn't so they don't end up having to go back and fix tons of stuff later. I don't know if you've been discussing your novel with a friend - even someone who's not a writer - as you've been working on it, but maybe that is a way to get some sort of touchstone opinion and see if you're not way off the mark.

I did NaNoWriMo once, using that technique of just writing without planning (much), and the problem is, once I hit the 50,000 words, I felt like I'd achieved what I'd set out to do and I stopped writing because I didn't really have any idea of how to wrap things up. So I think that it's a good idea to have at least an overall plan, with the writing goal not being a number of words, but a point in the story that you want to get the characters to. But that's an issue of motivation as well, which I have major problems with anyway.

I can totally relate to the writing!ADD as well. I have only one more installment in my 5-part Sherlock fic to go, and I sat down yesterday after lunch, telling myself I was just going to write the thing (I know exactly what's going to happen, I just need to put the words down on the screen), and lo and behold, all of a sudden it was 10 pm and I'd written maybe 100 words. I literally spent the entire afternoon and evening flipping back and forth between email, facebook, LJ, and news sites. Turning off the browser doesn't work for me either, because when I write, I constantly have things I have to look up (how far is it from London to Altnaharra in Scotland, what does an industrial food dehydrator look like, just how radioactive is plutonium). I can't just leave gaps and say I'll come back later, because these details can be major factors in the direction the story takes.

Actually, revision depends a lot on which fic you're asking about, but it's the theoretically current one that's had two total rewrites before it's even finished when I don't remember ever completely rewriting a whole chapter in any of my earlier ones. That should probably have been my first warning sign that this one is doomed ...

I think it would be better if you can get a real life friend to beta it for you. The last thing you want is for any copy of your work to end up in a online stranger's hand, even if he is your "friend".

Hopefully, you will have a friend you know that is very good at spotting plot holes and plot inconsistency.

With NaNo, you can work from an outline. In fact, they encourage you to outline ahead of time, so long as you're not writing any chunks you can paste into the manuscript. It's just that it doesn't make sense to spend time revising the outline once you're midway through your NaNo project.

I'm a pantster, though, so making it up as I go along is all I know. Outlines suck all the fun out of it, for me.

I often think whole scenes through in my head repeatedly before I finally write them down.

I don't think I'm a good person to ask about plot holes because oftentimes things that I think are plot holes are things that other people don't even notice, because I'm a perfectionist and I have a hard time overlooking tiny mistakes.

There are at least two stories I have written so far (and when I say "written" I mean three hundred plus pages of print actually typed out) that I have put aside for awhile, looked at again a long time later, and decided to scrap completely and start over.

To be fair, one of them was written by my much less experienced fifteen-year-old self, and I decided in the intervening years that if I wrote it again today, I'd go about it in a completely different way. But there are still aspects of it that I'd like to salvage.

WHY DO MY PLOTS HAVE TO MAKE SENSE?

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