When Starting Again Could Be the Answer
If you are on a serious mission to get your book published but are having absolutely no luck, there could be an option worth considering. The problem is, you may not want to consider it.
So here it is; a possible course of action if everything else is failing: start again.
It’s brutal. Your manuscript is like a child to you, and now I’m suggesting that you go back to the beginning. It can feel like one step away from giving up altogether, but stick with me; I’m about to make sense.
As a serious writer, which you probably are if you are reading this, you will be used to editing everything you write. You may go through several drafts before feeling even remotely satisfied with what you have written. All I’m asking you to do is take it one step further and consider the ultimate edit: start the whole book again.
Assuming the plot is not the problem — you feel you have a great story and don’t want to change the basic premise — starting again can open up a completely different direction for the story to flow in.
You will almost certainly find that the new version develops differently from the first. You may be surprised by how small changes in direction can lead to substantial changes in the storytelling. Even if the plot remains largely the same, which it often won’t, you may find yourself merging old ideas with new ones, rethinking characters, changing the pace or approaching the story from a completely different angle.
Yes, it is hard to start again from the very first word, particularly if you have spent months or years working towards a satisfactory final chapter. But sometimes we become so absorbed in the process of writing that we concentrate too heavily on every individual detail before we have allowed the whole story to become what it needs to be.
Getting it done is not the same as getting it perfect. There is time for perfection in the edit.
Starting again will not be an easy decision, but if there are fundamental flaws in your first draft, it can make a great deal of sense. Beginning again may allow you to iron out problems you were not even aware of when you wrote the original version.
Even experienced writers discover contradictions, inconsistencies and mistakes in manuscripts that seemed perfectly sound when they were writing them. Sometimes you simply cannot see the problems while you are too close to the work.
Writing may come as naturally as breathing to you, but that doesn’t mean you will get everything right. Grammar, continuity, detail and facts can all slip through unnoticed when you are immersed in a story. A fresh version gives you another opportunity to see the work with different eyes.
Depending on how you feel about showing unfinished work to other people, it can also be useful to enlist someone you trust to read what you have written.
However, this only really works if the person is prepared to be honest as well as constructive. If you choose someone who will simply tell you that everything is wonderful because they don’t want to hurt your feelings, you won’t learn very much.
You need someone who can tell you what isn’t working — and, ideally, explain why.
Starting over is never going to be an easy decision. There is a strange kind of grief involved in setting aside something you’ve spent so much time creating.
But starting again isn’t necessarily giving up.
Sometimes it is the opposite.
Sometimes it means recognising that the book you have written has taught you how to write the book you actually wanted to write.
And if you can step back far enough to see the bigger picture, a few months — or even a year — spent beginning again may be a small price to pay for a story that is finally doing what you wanted it to do.