Is too many "in progress" stories detrimental to writing well?

[BeautyInTheStruggle]

So, Hi - I'm new here!

I'm not new to forums and used to own/run/moderate several back in "the day" before Facebook took over everything and yes that does date me very well I think. Anyway my point of adding that was, if I've put this in the wrong place please move it or remove it, I'll understand.

So after lurking, replying to some topics I finally decided which one of my million questions about story writing I'd like to ask first, sparked in part because this morning we had an unplanned internet outtage - and after losing large chunks of stories twice in the past due to hard drive failures I now keep my stories in the cloud. This meant I was limited to stories I have specifically set as "offline" unfortunately it seems though I have been doing SO well in sticking to writing on one story in particular I forgot to set offline on this one.

After fumbling with the modem, searching for network status at my location and finding out it was a wider problem than just my end (I had hoped it was just the modem in need of a restart), I made a cup of coffee, watched various family members do whatever things they found to temporarily amuse themselves in this highly internet dependant house we have and contemplated what I might write.

I currently didn't have any new ideas banging around in my head insisting I get them down on paper so they will at least give me some peace and quiet, I can't blame the stories for wanting this - after all its quite a noisy place in my head, even I'm not sure how to live with that!

So I turned to a story idea I had recently written a few short paragraphs down on, a story (book / novel ?) intended to be one of ten in series two of the one I have reliably been working on for a few months now (also one out of a set of ten stories). And contently played around with fleshing the idea out some more until finally the internet was back.

But it begs the question I am asking now, as I've wondered myself for quite some time.

Is too many "in progress" stories detrimental to writing well?

By this I mean, I have around 40 stories, they all share similar themes the main of which is romance with somewhat explicit scenes, however they also feature a range of other subjects/styles from non-con, werewolves, shapeshifters, dragon/human, stockholm type syndrome, kidnapping, Indians, civil war, you probably get the idea now.

I'm interested to know if other writers generally have several in progress stories at a time, do you have them in progress but only actively write on one at a time, or do you mix it up? Do you find that if you write on more than one it leads to those stories having a similar "flavour" - ie MFC in both has much the same characteristics?

Am I doing it wrong to have so many in progress stories, or is this normal?

To be fair to myself I've been writing for over twenty years now, with a big gap in the middle due to loss of progress on stories and then life events leaving me with no inspiration to write the fun or happy scenes, but also perhaps from lack of time. I have recently given up a time consuming and costly hobby and decided to see if I could pick my writing back up and I have, just a little too well in regards to the number of stories I am writing.

In the year or so since picking writing back up I have possibly started 15 stories in some way or another, though the last 6 months I have been focused almost entirely on an idea for a series that came to me, and mostly particularly one book in that, the third in a set of ten although each would be/are written in a way as to stand alone (with the first and second only partially done, I'd attempt to explain why I'm at this book instead of the first I started with but I fear I have already written way too much at this point).

Anyway if you've read this far and have something to say on the subject please do!

 

[big_cane_sugar]

IDK if you're doing it wrong but if you are, so am I.

At one point I actually made a spreadsheet with information about the stories on them so that I could keep track because I kept using ideas from one story in the wrong stories....

That actually really helped me clarify things though. After that I knew the nature of Story A is A, so anything that best contributes to that goes in A, the nature of Story B is B, so anything that best contributes to B goes there, and so on. I had a lot of stuff to sort out but it helped.

 

[SimonDoom]

Speaking for myself, possibly. I think it can be difficult to move back and forth with multiple stories, something I've done at times, and then reestablish continuity with one after a hiatus. I have a very long unfinished story list.

 

[TheLobster]

Just because you had started on a story some time in the past doesn't mean it's necessarily "in progress." It's quite normal to put some projects on hold and return to them later (or never); the mere existence of an unfinished work shouldn't really bother you.

Unless, of course, you are somehow actively contributing to each one of those 40 (!) stories at least every few days, in which case (1) I press X to doubt; and (2) I would be very surprised indeed if you could keep them straight in your head without Tolkien-level of auxiliary notes.

Personally, I try to focus on one story at a time, but in practice it ends up being two or three (partly thanks to Literotica contests and events). It's usually not a problem to switch between them if I just read the few preceding paragraphs or the whole current scene before writing more. (This also has the added benefit that I'm basically editing as I go, meaning less work for the final editing passes once the draft is finished).

 

[BeautyInTheStruggle]

IDK if you're doing it wrong but if you are, so am I.

At one point I actually made a spreadsheet with information about the stories on them so that I could keep track because I kept using ideas from one story in the wrong stories....

That actually really helped me clarify things though. After that I knew the nature of Story A is A, so anything that best contributes to that goes in A, the nature of Story B is B, so anything that best contributes to B goes there, and so on. I had a lot of stuff to sort out but it helped.

A spreadsheet... hmmm... An interesting idea! I haven't played with writing connected stories or series until my more recent restarting of writing and the first attempt (wolf/shapeshifter stories) I struggled to work out a timeline since they were connected however I did learn from attempting it and those stories are still dear to me so I don't doubt I will finish them one day.

But I moved onto the current series idea and have spent a lot more time with it, world building, I created a document with all the characters, another one with tabs for the world, its laws, its magic, a glossary of any made up words, a beastiary etc.

I literally now have one tab called "I have questions" where I dump anything I haven't been able to work out yet to try and answer - for example : Age difference between dragons and humans, how fast do dragons age, relevant as these dragons can choose to appear and live as human - if I had a dragon who has lived 70 human years relatively how old would that make him appear in human terms?

Just because you had started on a story some time in the past doesn't mean it's necessarily "in progress." It's quite normal to put some projects on hold and return to them later (or never); the mere existence of an unfinished work shouldn't really bother you.

Unless, of course, you are somehow actively contributing to each one of those 40 (!) stories at least every few days, in which case (1) I press X to doubt; and (2) I would be very surprised indeed if you could keep them straight in your head without Tolkien-level of auxiliary notes.

Personally, I try to focus on one story at a time, but in practice it ends up being two or three (partly thanks to Literotica contests and events). It's usually not a problem to switch between them if I just read the few preceding paragraphs or the whole current scene before writing more. (This also has the added benefit that I'm basically editing as I go, meaning less work for the final editing passes once the draft is finished).

Oh no, definitely not actively writing on that many - I did wonder if "unfinished" was a better fit.

I currently have one I have mostly focused on, with another three from the same set of ten that I might occasionally add something to as they touch on the other characters and scenes might appear in both books from the other perspective.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Is too many "in progress" stories detrimental to writing well?

I think it means folk aren't ruthless enough with their non starters, thinking every word they write might be precious, one day. I take the view that if a story isn't progressing there's a good reason. Sometimes that reason is life, and that's fine, but more often it's because the story start wasn't good enough, felt wrong, meh. I figure, if it wasn't good enough to continue, it never will be, so why bother keeping it?

I'm ruthless with my false starts and delete them, with only two or three exceptions.

I'm interested to know if other writers generally have several in progress stories at a time, do you have them in progress but only actively write on one at a time, or do you mix it up? Do you find that if you write on more than one it leads to those stories having a similar "flavour" - ie MFC in both has much the same characteristics?

For the last five years everything I've published has been a side project, written while I've been writing something else, and in some cases, there have been three levels of "side".

Am I doing it wrong to have so many in progress stories, or is this normal?

Normal for most writers here in the AH, I reckon. There's nothing wrong about it though, because there is no "right" way to write.

To be fair to myself I've been writing for over twenty years now, with a big gap in the middle due to loss of progress on stories and then life events leaving me with no inspiration to write the fun or happy scenes, but also perhaps from lack of time. I have recently given up a time consuming and costly hobby and decided to see if I could pick my writing back up and I have, just a little too well in regards to the number of stories I am writing.

How much did you publish in those twenty years?

In the year or so since picking writing back up I have possibly started 15 stories in some way or another, though the last 6 months I have been focused almost entirely on an idea for a series that came to me, and mostly particularly one book

Focus is good! I'd stick to that, get it finished. If the other ideas are that good, you'll get to them eventually. I wouldn't wed myself to twenty years old content, though. That's not likely to be who you are now, is it?

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

My bits all sort of blend together. Sometimes something resembling a story falls out.

 

[big_cane_sugar]

My bits all sort of blend together. Sometimes something resembling a story falls out.

When two stories get together, sometimes a third one comes along?

Maybe making the case for using story control....










I'll show myself out.

 

[BobbyBrandt]

So, Hi - I'm new here!

I'm not new to forums and used to own/run/moderate several back in "the day" before Facebook took over everything and yes that does date me very well I think. Anyway my point of adding that was, if I've put this in the wrong place please move it or remove it, I'll understand.

So after lurking, replying to some topics I finally decided which one of my million questions about story writing I'd like to ask first, sparked in part because this morning we had an unplanned internet outtage - and after losing large chunks of stories twice in the past due to hard drive failures I now keep my stories in the cloud. This meant I was limited to stories I have specifically set as "offline" unfortunately it seems though I have been doing SO well in sticking to writing on one story in particular I forgot to set offline on this one.

After fumbling with the modem, searching for network status at my location and finding out it was a wider problem than just my end (I had hoped it was just the modem in need of a restart), I made a cup of coffee, watched various family members do whatever things they found to temporarily amuse themselves in this highly internet dependant house we have and contemplated what I might write.

I currently didn't have any new ideas banging around in my head insisting I get them down on paper so they will at least give me some peace and quiet, I can't blame the stories for wanting this - after all its quite a noisy place in my head, even I'm not sure how to live with that!

So I turned to a story idea I had recently written a few short paragraphs down on, a story (book / novel ?) intended to be one of ten in series two of the one I have reliably been working on for a few months now (also one out of a set of ten stories). And contently played around with fleshing the idea out some more until finally the internet was back.

But it begs the question I am asking now, as I've wondered myself for quite some time.

Is too many "in progress" stories detrimental to writing well?

By this I mean, I have around 40 stories, they all share similar themes the main of which is romance with somewhat explicit scenes, however they also feature a range of other subjects/styles from non-con, werewolves, shapeshifters, dragon/human, stockholm type syndrome, kidnapping, Indians, civil war, you probably get the idea now.

I'm interested to know if other writers generally have several in progress stories at a time, do you have them in progress but only actively write on one at a time, or do you mix it up? Do you find that if you write on more than one it leads to those stories having a similar "flavour" - ie MFC in both has much the same characteristics?

Am I doing it wrong to have so many in progress stories, or is this normal?

To be fair to myself I've been writing for over twenty years now, with a big gap in the middle due to loss of progress on stories and then life events leaving me with no inspiration to write the fun or happy scenes, but also perhaps from lack of time. I have recently given up a time consuming and costly hobby and decided to see if I could pick my writing back up and I have, just a little too well in regards to the number of stories I am writing.

In the year or so since picking writing back up I have possibly started 15 stories in some way or another, though the last 6 months I have been focused almost entirely on an idea for a series that came to me, and mostly particularly one book in that, the third in a set of ten although each would be/are written in a way as to stand alone (with the first and second only partially done, I'd attempt to explain why I'm at this book instead of the first I started with but I fear I have already written way too much at this point).

Anyway if you've read this far and have something to say on the subject please do!

Maybe you want to consider them as "scenes" at this stage and not stories.

This would afford you the option of eventually combining multiple scenes into a cohesive story if they can relate to each other, fit the same theme, and provide consistency in the POV, settings, and chronology.

It might take some tweaking as you combine them, but consider it an option that puts your busy mind at ease for now.

 

[BeautyInTheStruggle]

How much did you publish in those twenty years?

Focus is good! I'd stick to that, get it finished. If the other ideas are that good, you'll get to them eventually. I wouldn't wed myself to twenty years old content, though. That's not likely to be who you are now, is it?

Nothing, I'm not saying I'm a good writer by any means what I'm saying here is that the sheer number of my stories is a lot less when you consider how many they average over those years. I know my signature says twenty to thirty stories, but when I wrote this post I realized I hadn't included the individual books in the series, so its more like 40+ with ones I have at least started.

Most of these are unfinished hence "in progress" but even if I had finished them - I had nowhere to publish them. I'm not a person who likes to put myself out there in general and the kind of background I have, the people around me, are not likely to be into what I write. They might look at me like I'm a monster that's suddenly grown two heads though. Which is why I was thinking of posting them here.

While I'm sure quite a few might never make the cut as I seem to look at writing a little different coming back into it and view some of the earlier stuff as more childishly written than my current stuff its not to say the ideas were "not good enough" or "false starts" - the reason I have so many started is I tend to just have them come to me in a dream and continue to bug me until I put them down on paper. So if I'm working on something I will generally take a break write out whatever parts of then new story I came up with - usually a couple of the more dramatic chapters - and then go back to what I was working on before, leaving the new stuff in the "I'll get to it one day folder".

I am definitely not the same person I was twenty years ago, one of the reasons I took a break was I lost my belief in romance and happily ever after for a while there due to things in real life, but for the most part the stories have held up, the concepts at least. My writing has improved (though its still probably terrible compared to a lot here) which is partly why I think I have given some preference to creating something new (rather than trying to edit older work) and working solely on that with the aim to "finish" a full rough draft of it before seriously touching anything else.

 

[ElectricBlue]

...is partly why I think I have given some preference to creating something new (rather than trying to edit older work) and working solely on that with the aim to "finish" a full rough draft of it before seriously touching anything else.

That's the key. You're twenty years on in life, with more life experience, maturity. I'd say, treat that old content more like a diary of you back then, but don't bother trying to rework it. Start with a clean sheet, start writing something new. Don't write backwards, write forwards.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I generally have just one, sometimes two, 'in progress'. That said, I have dozens 'lying fallow' those tend to be easily restarted.

Edit, intended in a friendly way. OP - you're falling into that classic trap most of us have at one point or another. Don't overthink things. It's all cool, anyway you play it.