the drawer novel

[casnow]

I don't think it has to be a dead novel, but I know that I can personally see my stories/plot/character development improving with each attempt. However, when I look at attempt #1, I feel like it's a good story, just not written in a strong voice. So, I'm tempted to go through it after I finish my current WIP, and make a strong outline from it, then delete the original text and start over (or at least delete several sections). I'm sure it would be much better than the original, and maybe even publishable (sadly, I think it makes a better screenplay than a novel).

I think you have to ask yourself is the plot strong? If so, I think it doesn't have to die, it just has to be rewritten.

[Richard A Kray]

Okay, so I think I have a unique opinion on this...

My first novel, along with what is technically my second, are out on submission right now. (Everyone please cross fingers, toes, and any other appendages they feel appropriate. Thank you.) The thing is, that first one - the one I thought was completely GENIUS when I started it, "How come no one has written this yet??!?!?!!!" got drawered after working on it for about a month. It sat there, suffering at the bottom of my "Nice try, dumb ass" file (I really have one of these on my computer) while I worked on what I thought would be a way better novel.

Then I got done with the first draft of that second one (which, if you want to know, is about a guy who buys a haunted 1987 Buick Skylark and must deal with a ghost with feathered hair and an unhealthy obsession with Huey Lewis and the News while going on a cross country road trip to save his girlfriend from Colombian drug lords), printed it out and brought out my blue pen - editing time.

"This is effing terrible!" Drawer.

So I took out the old one, the zombie book, and finished it up. Changed it. Re-worked everything. And even wrote a second book like it. And now they're impressing people. So I guess, the moral of the story is, open up the drawer once in a while? I don't know. I'm not good with morals.