How to know whether to abandon a novel?

[CatFearer]

I'm trying to write my first novel.

I've been struggling with it off and on since Jan 2019, and I'd written various iterations of the first few chapters while I tried to work out story direction and genre etc.

I eventually settled to write a new version of it and am now 23k words in. I've kept notes of what happens in each chapter and can now see very clearly that what I've written is weak, there's no real conflict, no key question for a reader to keep reading to discover the answer.

I've always been clearer on the plot for second half of the book, and that half will have more conflict. But I can't seem to write myself there in an interesting enough way. I don't want to start writing the second half of the book without having written the first, my mind doesn't work like that.

I'm thinking maybe my idea is just weak and unworkable and perhaps I'd be best abandoning it and coming up with something new where the story is stronger from the outset.

But then the other approach would be to keep writing shite in the hope I can get myself to the better second half of the novel, then rewrite the first half later, hoping I have some brainwaves by then on how to improve it.

What would you do?

You may have started the story too soon. Can you imagine the second half of the plot as the start? You would obviously have to change things but it's possible.

@FortunesFave says, do you need the story elements from first half? If you do, could you write the second half and periodically flashback in the second half to any essential content from the first half. May be better to let the reader figure out what might have happened in the first half. Ambiguity. Readers might like the work involved.

Think of it as if an editor told you to lose the first half. If you do it yourself, you might make a more interesting story and

Good luck.

To take a seasonal example, how much of Scrooge and Marley's story was introduced in a Christmas Carol at the start, rather than in flashback/by magic/alluded to?

I think that's good advice -- if writing a particular section, plotline, scene or whatever is boring you, or proving impossible, it's (for me) either a scene that it's not there in your head yet, or that it's fundamentally unnecessary. Can you start where you're clearer on the conflict?

Thanks OP for starting this. Helpful for me too.
Good luck with it (no advice as a newbie myself)

Thanks for the replies. I'll mull over whether I could start with the second half action first, I'm not sure it'd work but I don't want to rule it out until I've properly thought it through.

I don't want to give full story details, but it's similar in structure to Rebecca, in that part way through something major happens, and then that event picks up the pace of the story and drives it through to the end. So I'm not sure that having that main event at the start would work, I feel I'd just run out of story and not have enough for a novel, but I need to interrogate this.

I instinctively feel like my first half of the novel needs to be somewhat quieter, with the main drama from the midpoint onwards until the story's climax. I have all that main drama, I just need something juicy to lead up to it!

I think I'm struggling because in that second half of the story, my main character gets involved with something that the antagonist is driving, that at first is a mystery to her, so she doesn't have her own strong motivation or goal, she's caught up in the hell that someone else's actions create for her.

Well, in Rebecca, the suspense is partly set up by the prologue, with the protagonist dreaming of a ruined Manderley and hinting at appalling events in her past which have turned Maxim into the sort of traumatised vegetable she's looking after in their series of little continental hotels in the 'now' -- isn't it? That way we know that the apparently 'put-upon nice girl carried off by rich fairytale older man' story is going to go somewhere darker than it looks.

I realise prologues are deeply unfashionable, but could you add something from the 'now' of your protagonists life (ie whatever state she ends up in at the end of the novel) from which you go back to her past to start the novel proper?

Also thinking of something like the short prologue at the start of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, where we know the protagonist is implicated in a murder, before we flick back to the beginning of his student days and his dull suburban background?

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with a quieter start but will the first half/first chapter/first page be interesting enough to interest an agent and publisher and then reader? Is it literary fiction, in which case less key, or genre/popular fiction?

Good luck.

Nore, I like that idea, I'll do some thinking.

Zilla1 thank you for the good luck, definitely need it! I probably wasn't explaining myself very well - I don't want a first half to be actually quiet (and as you say therefore boring for a reader / agent / publisher) I just mean that in the case of this story, I kind of know that my second half material is my second half material and that I need to find something compelling for the first half that leads to that more dramatic second half, rather than use that material from the second half to start my story earlier. Gah, so hard to explain without actually going into detail about the story itself.

I've got a writing tutor, of sorts, but have limited access to her, she suggested my story idea was Gothic mystery so that's what I'm aiming for, for now, but my genre might change once I've written it (if I can ever manage to finish the thing!).

I don't read much mystery so feel out of my depth re what a character does alongside discovering odd things every now and then (hence my difficulty writing this first half).

I probably need a sub plot to give the main character something else interesting to do while she accidentally stumbles across odd and disturbing things, before she gets caught up in the antagonist's plot in the second half of the book.

So she needs a goal...a need...whatever is driving her to go down the path she's choosing at the start. And it should be a BIG need. Not something minor.

There's no drama unless the protagonist really wants that 'thing'.

If she's caught up in someone else's mess at the start then she's being driven only by someone else's goals. HER goals are what matter and the other persons's mess should be getting in her way of that.

FortunesFave this is exactly where I'm getting stuck. My writing tutor indicated that it was ok for the main character to be more responsive, as this was going to be Gothic suspense or thriller, it was ok for her to be caught up in the nasty things that the antagonist does. But as I don't want her to really get fully caught up in these until after the midpoint, she definitely needs a goal.

I just can't think of one that works with the story she gets caught up in later!

So I guess I'm going in circles and that's what makes me think maybe this novel is one to abandon, and that I'd be better off starting afresh and creating a very strong character with a strong goal that drives the story from the outset.

I came up with this story idea before I'd really learned about 'a character with a goal' and really my story was just a 'what if' and has never been strong enough. It's difficult to know whether to keep trying to force it to work as it certainly doesn't currently.

I'm a bit gutted as I have two weeks off coming up and I was hoping to get lots of words down, and I've already thrown a lot of time and energy at this story idea (various iterations with different versions of the main character etc). BUT I can see so clearly that there is currently no reason for the reader to turn the pages in the first half of the novel, and try as I might, I can't think of a good goal or motivation for that character when the story I have for her in the second half is a bit horror story ish and she is caught up in the antagonist's twisted plans.

At least I'm answering my own question here - I think it's clear that if I can't think of a good goal for my MC for the first half, then I must abandon this novel and work on another novel, one with a strong MC goal from the outset.

Times like this make me realise how clever novelists are - I don't think I'll ever achieve a full draft as it's just so difficult to think of enough ideas to weave throughout a full novel.

Her goal should be what's driving the story. If you're trying to get her involved in someone else's issues, maybe it's not her story but the other person's story that you're trying to tell.

You came up with the story and then tried to make it fit with this character...but it doesn't.

Doesn't mean there's nothing worth keeping. It might just need changing.

What about horror stories though FortunesFave?

I'm not actually a reader of horror stories but from what little I know I get the impression that a character is usually there to be caught up in the horror created by an antagonist, or ghost, or killer or whatever.

That's what my tutor has indicated, that my novel doesn't need a main character goal because it's a Gothic suspense (not full on horror but horror elements).

But because I'm not familiar with the genre I'm finding it difficult to think up material to get her from the point where she gradually discovers lots of strange happenings, to the point where she is fully enmeshed in the bad things that are going on.

So in that respect, yes, I think she needs a goal before we see the impacts on her of the antagonist's goal.

I haven't read the Fall of the House of Ushser but know that's a novel where the main character is just there to tell us the story of the antagonist. My novel is supposed to be the same type of story, but it's failing because I need her to gradually see evidence of the antagonist's plot and then eventually be caught up in it, but I don't have anything else for her to do while she discovers these bits of evidence.

Think it might be a mismatch re my skills / reading knowledge and the type of story I'm attempting.

It's frustrating because I really do like the antagonist's plot, but it wouldn't work to tell the story from his point of view as there would be no secret to his intentions so no mystery or build up.

Thanks so much for helping me thrash this through! It's helping me to articulate the issues to myself rather than just feeling stuck.

'like the antagonist's plot, but it wouldn't work to tell the story from his point of view as there would be no secret to his intentions so no mystery or build up' - if everything doesn't go the antagonist's way then that's a story. One simplistic heist rule is only to share the plan for the heist in advance with the audience if it goes wrong. The story could be when the antagonist's plan is thwarted and what they do.

Even in horror stories where the protagonist gets caught up in someone else's (or something else's!) issues, the protagonist STILL has a goal.

Did your tutor really indicate that your main character doesn't need a goal? I find that shocking!

All characters need a goal...a want...something that's driving them. Or we don't care...we want them to achieve their goal.

In Stephen King's novel Carrie, Carrie wants to be accepted as a normal teenager.

That's her goal. She's caught up by the horror of her own telekinesis...and what it does to stop her in her pursuit of a normal life...hampered also by her Mother's mental health issues of course.

Your character's goal could be an internal one...doesn't need to be "to find the Holy Grail" or "to free the prisoner's of the madman"

She could even have more than one goal. Usually they do...a major one and an internal one.

Sometimes, those seem to be at odds with one another...eg. she might have the goal of "to meet a man I want to marry" but her internal one that many characters aren't even aware of is "to be truly independent"

The best characters are complex...and the plot simple. Driven by character...then it's worth reading.

You can't really compare what you're writing with The Fall of the House of Usher because the real protagonist is Roderick. Not the narrator. They loved narrator's back then for some reason.

Narrators...not 'narrator's'

I'm just working out now that I think my tutor means that my MC is just the narrator, there to step us through the story that then must be the antagonist's - which doesn't quite work for my story. She didn't directly say this though, just talked about not having to worry about the main character as she was just there to step us through the story.

Zilla1 good point re if things don't go the antagonist's way then that's a story. I am instinctively resisting this way of telling the story but I'll spend some time at some point thinking through whether I could make this way work.

FortunesFave thanks for the Carrie example, I'm hopelessly literal when it comes to this 'goal' thing and think of a goal being something very overt e.g. person homeless and needs a new home, person falls in love with person x and must have them etc. It's a good reminder to me that 'wanting to be a normal teenager' is also a goal. I might have to change the word goal and call it a need or something else (need isn't quite right) to help me think of some ideas.

I've tried MC is in love with antagonist but that doesn't work because I'm hopeless at writing romance and don't really want it to feel like a romance novel. I was initially going to try antagonist is super mean to MC and she wants to escape (she is trapped working with the antagonist in an institution), but then I read a book on how to write Gothic fiction and it talked about having people seem nice, then nasty later (rather than obviously nasty upfront) so that got ditched.

MC is grieving and has had to leave home for the first time and it's her first job, but I'm not sure what she could want or need that would have actual obstacles to create story. She wants her parents back but that ain't going to happen! She wants to be back home, but her home is gone so that can't happen either!

Stupid main character, I might have to send her away, to the bottom of a drawer.

Just send her away to be a governess then meet a stranger who falls off a horse. Just be careful of the first wife in the wing from which she is forbidden.

Or send her to live in a house with her new husband's first wife's housekeeper.

What will happen to the protagonist as a result of their entanglement with the antagonist? How will they have been changed?
Can you start with an outline of the impact on their character of the events you are about to describe? Then I believed X.. now my world view is Y.

As PPs have said, sometimes a very brief prologue-ish indication that, at the point your story begins, the protag was hopelessly naive/looking the wrong way/ had no idea what was about to unfold can work very well in - indeed, kind of underpin - the Gothic novel.