Your/My Unfinished Novel

July 12, 2011 5:09 PM

OK, so you've partly written a novel, but you're having trouble finishing the damn thing. What to do? Summon stamina, press on, and be proud of your literary success? Or, post your abandonment for all the world to see! Ladies and gentlemen, a place for your unfini--
posted by anothermug (39 comments total)

If I didn't sign a big stack of scary papers, i would have probably quit hacking away at Mt. Novel a long fucking time ago. It just stops being fun and becomes with huge panic-inducing slog where you never want to look at anything you've written ever again and you envy work where you can say you're objectively done and completed the job.
posted by The Whelk at 5:23 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

It was a dark and stormy night...
posted by LordSludge at 5:24 PM on July 12, 2011

The Whelk, I hear you man. I hear you.

I find that Gin helps quite a bit.
posted by oddman at 5:29 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's funny, my copy of A Dance with Dragons just got delivered today.
posted by mollweide at 5:31 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oddman, really? Gin? How dangerous and disrespectful and wrong.

It's bourbon.
posted by The Whelk at 5:34 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

This reminds me that maybe I should be working on the long delayed (when your TVtropes page has a "the schedule slipped" trope point, you are overdue) sequel to MOPI instead of, I dunno, reading metafilter. or working...
posted by localroger at 5:35 PM on July 12, 2011

We'll have to agree to disagree. That or pistols at dawn. I leave it to you.
posted by oddman at 5:36 PM on July 12, 2011

Cocktails in a pit.
posted by The Whelk at 5:37 PM on July 12, 2011

I wonder if this would help me with the delicate and difficult business of deciding how much mine sucks. It's not that I don't have discipline, it's that I have developed a deep and sudden loathing.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:40 PM on July 12, 2011

There should be a website for great ideas for books you had but never even started. That would be a sad graveyard of sketches and Google docs.
posted by 2bucksplus at 5:41 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have a friend whose problem is that he has finished too many novels. We keep telling him to stop, and that nobody wants to read them, but he seems to have a compulsion of some kind.
posted by silby at 5:42 PM on July 12, 2011

There should be a website for great ideas for books you had but never even started.

Metafilter seems to serve that purpose for me. Here's a free opening line, if anyone's interested:

The world is carousel of color, vicious and full of hatred.
posted by philip-random at 5:44 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

So this is a site for those with writer's block and flexible ethics?
posted by villanelles at dawn at 5:45 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I can think of a few folks that the content on this site would be perfect for, they never seem to finish the novels they're reading and just give up part-way through anyhow.
posted by lantius at 5:48 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Why don't half of you guys agree to start at the end and work backwards, then someone like cortex can write a Markov chain blending algorithm to graft them together.
posted by StickyCarpet at 5:57 PM on July 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I tried NANOWRIMO and lasted about a day. Tried the start of another novel for a creative writing class and that never lasted. Someday I'm going to write my self-insert urban fantasy. And that novel about a nanotech planet.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:58 PM on July 12, 2011

"The world is carousel of color, vicious and full of hatred."

All the world is a carousel and the men and women are the plastic horses and the children on them are their terrible jobs.
posted by smithsmith at 6:03 PM on July 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: a carousel of color, vicious and full of hatred.

[I kid, I kid.]

It's really full of pancakes.
posted by datawrangler at 6:04 PM on July 12, 2011

IF you want to laugh, read the unfinished book entitled I Probably Pooped On Your Couch.

I have laughed out loud reading this, barely into it. This woman is a jewel. I want to tell her that if she finishes her book, I will finish mine. Really fun and funny.
posted by dancestoblue at 6:05 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

How you uh, how you comin' on that novel you're working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice litte story you're working on there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protaganist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? (voice getting higher pitched) Yea, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah? (voice returns to normal) No, no, you deserve some time off.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:05 PM on July 12, 2011 [9 favorites]

Wow, this site is really
posted by pompomtom at 6:05 PM on July 12, 2011

Unpromising title: The Melancholy of an Author

Much more promising title: I Probably Pooped On Your Couch

On preview: beaten to it!

I would be much more likely to try NaNoWriMo again if it weren't in damn November. Did they use a special algorithm to determine which month would be the most inconvenient for the largest number of people?
posted by Countess Elena at 6:07 PM on July 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

The night was SULTRY.
posted by katillathehun at 6:11 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I would be much more likely to try NaNoWriMo again if it weren't in damn November. Did they use a special algorithm to determine which month would be the most inconvenient for the largest number of people?

Anyone can be a finisher in August.
posted by Trurl at 6:38 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I had a similar idea for a site once, a Graveyard of Unfinished Dissertations and/or Thesis. It's painful just thinking about it.
posted by formless at 6:47 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

There's a book by someone called something like "The Novels I Never Wrote" and he's maybe an OULIPO person or maybe not but I'm three gimlets in and I can't for the life of me remember.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 6:50 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't think I'd want to read any of those novels on that website, because they don't have an ending.

Someone had to say it.
posted by jimmythefish at 6:54 PM on July 12, 2011

As a multi-failed non-novelist, this is fascinating, and gives me some great insights. For instance this one: "I realised that it was an immature, over-dramatic personal fantasy of a novel" Yup, been there.

Or this: "Also, I needed to figure out along the way certain developments in characters and in plot. I have sketches and some hazy ideas but that’s about all." Oh yeah, when you walk in with a shoddy plan, or no plan at all, and you get into a writing attitude of just advancing the story by whatever means necessary, you can easily find yourself in a situation where you need to know something, like the customs of a certain country, or what it's like on an oil rig or in a NASCAR pit and you find yourself on Wikipedia and reading people's blogs and hey guess what your novel is now dead.

It's like Roosevelt vs. the Amazon in there. If you attempt it, I suggest a lot of research beforehand on the kinds of settings and characters you may find yourself among. This research won't save you necessarily, but not doing it is a good way to crash about 40k - 50k words in. Don't let yourself become a statistic!
posted by chaff at 6:57 PM on July 12, 2011

Yikes it was George Steiner. No Oulipian, he.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 7:17 PM on July 12, 2011

I had a similar idea for a site once, a Graveyard of Unfinished Dissertations and/or Thesis. It's painful just thinking about it.

Oh man, Heart of Darkness would have nothing on the horror of that site. For the love of all that's holy, never ever do this.

On the other hand, I just read five pages of one of the unfinished novels and yeah, it was pretty awful. Hyperbolic, repetitive, mannered, and full of orphaned metaphors flailing around looking for a home.
posted by jokeefe at 8:10 PM on July 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hey, so this one is pretty good, five pages in! Across the Ocean into My Childhood by Farida Samerkhanova. I'm glad I read it.
posted by jokeefe at 9:30 PM on July 12, 2011

I would be much more likely to try NaNoWriMo again if it weren't in damn November. Did they use a special algorithm to determine which month would be the most inconvenient for the largest number of people?

I think the logic is more like even # of days + bad weather month where nobody's tempted to veg outside + one day off + 4 days of Thanksgiving = better writing situation for a lot of other people. But...

Anyone can be a finisher in August.

Now you can do it in August!
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:11 PM on July 12, 2011

I want to write a comment on this, but I have a novel to revise.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:34 PM on July 12, 2011

Just kidding (well, not really, but, you know).

It just stops being fun and becomes with huge panic-inducing slog where you never want to look at anything you've written ever again and you envy work where you can say you're objectively done and completed the job.

That's pretty much all novel writing once you've reached the halfway mark. Then you get about 3/4 through and you're just coasting to the finish line and it's wonderful and the world is filled with rainbows and stars.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:35 PM on July 12, 2011

Duck, Duck...Why did I sign this
Duke, duck, no
duct, duct-oh, shit.
Duck, duck
SHIT!
posted by clavdivs at 1:14 AM on July 13, 2011

I would have clicked that link with that sinkhole-in-the-stomach achy feeling even three weeks ago. But not today. Because dammit, after 12 years, I HAVE FINALLY FINISHED MY OWN DAMN NOVEL!!!!!! I have been walking on weirdness for the last almost month trying to wrap my head around the idea that the huge looming monster I kept alternately ignoring and hacking away at ineffectually is now sitting bored in the corner twiddling its thumbs.
shit. now what?
posted by Mchelly at 3:59 AM on July 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Sounds like a lot of these unfinished novels are actually memoirs. Also: reading the reasons why folks didn't finish was a bit depressing.
posted by bluedaisy at 6:39 AM on July 13, 2011

Wow, this is cool.

@LordSludge, I actually once started a story that way..
posted by mikeyla85 at 9:58 AM on July 13, 2011

How you uh, how you comin' on that novel you're working on? Huh? Gotta a big, uh, big stack of papers there? Gotta, gotta nice litte story you're working on there? Your big novel you've been working on for 3 years? Huh? Gotta, gotta compelling protaganist? Yeah? Gotta obstacle for him to overcome? Huh? Gotta story brewing there? Working on, working on that for quite some time? Huh? (voice getting higher pitched) Yea, talking about that 3 years ago. Been working on that the whole time? Nice little narrative? Beginning, middle, and end? Some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends? At the end your main character is richer from the experience? Yeah? Yeah?

For some reason, I can only read this in the voice Cole hears in Twelve Monkeys.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 1:39 PM on July 13, 2011