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The Heartbreak of the False Start
Marshall R Maresca
Posted: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 11:37 AM
Joined: 3/7/2011
Posts: 55


It hits like lightning across the forebrain.  The Brilliant Idea that will be the Next New Book.  And every thought is consumed with the "Oh, wow!"ness of this new idea.  It's fresh and exciting, especially if it hits in the hard-middle-slog of a novel.  Then, it inhabits your brain like new lover, with promises of how everything is going to be easy and light and problem free and THIS is the project you should be working on.

And the initial worldbuilding snaps together, characters are as clear as day.  You open up a document and just start writing, because isn't that's how it's supposed to be?  Isn't that how real writers write, right?  They just pound it out and go where the story takes them and they do it brilliantly on their first draft and that's what you're going to do this time because it's brilliant and you're brilliant and this is the best novel ever written by anyone ever and--

CRASH

Somewhere between five and fifteen thousand words, the fiery passion part is burnt out, and then you're poking at those dying embers and realizing, "I don't actually have a plot here, do I?"

Anyone else get this?

Timothy Maguire
Posted: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 4:15 PM
Joined: 8/13/2011
Posts: 272


I like to call this my Modus Operandi.
Marshall R Maresca
Posted: Tuesday, February 5, 2013 11:14 PM
Joined: 3/7/2011
Posts: 55


Yeah, I have a handful of "graveyard" projects that have 5-15K words, and won't be finished.  I've learned to at least temper those "initial excitement" burns to make sure there's more THERE there to support a whole novel.