Is it just me...

[EmeraldKitten]

...or does everyone have a million unfinished stories?

Why? Why do these half finished gems rot on our hard drives?

Any ideas on how to jump-start a dud?

Sometimes I think I get writer's block.
Sometimes I get completely disgusted at the story line.
I've deleted entire documents, only to go and quickly close out without saving.

Please discuss.

 

[oggbashan]

I don't delete.

I leave them for months, looking at them about once a quarter.

Sometimes, like Getting Nude With Chairman Mao, an unfinished project is the inspiration for another one.

Sometimes part of an unfinished story is recycled into a new one.

Rarely, a story gets finished after months or years.

As .txt documents they take up very little space on my hard drive or on the back-up CDs.

Og

 

[geronimo_appleby]

I don't delete.

I leave them for months, looking at them about once a quarter.

Sometimes, like Getting Nude With Chairman Mao, an unfinished project is the inspiration for another one.

Sometimes part of an unfinished story is recycled into a new one.

Rarely, a story gets finished after months or years.

As .txt documents they take up very little space on my hard drive or on the back-up CDs.

Og

yep. and i find if i don't battle through then boredom sets in.

probably just like it does reading them.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I have 145 stories in my unfinished folder...

 

[EmeraldKitten]

I don't end up deleting them, unless I just can't stand to look at them, lol.

And I only have 25. I think ya beat me! lol.

(Of course, that's on this computer.. not to mention what was on the last two computers I had that got struck by lightning. I hadn't learned the lesson of backing my stuff up. )

 

[DorlaMoorehouse]

I think at this point, I have no more than 10 unfinished stories. My method of writing allows me to rarely have a half-done story. I never have more than three new pieces in draft form at once, and I tend to work on each short story very methodically - write the draft in 5-7 days; take no more than 5 days off; revise in 3-5 days; repeat revision cycle until it's done. If I can't finish a short story within 10 days, I stop and think. Is it because I am going through some emotional/personal crisis that has kept me from working? Have there been unusual demands on my time? Did I start this story when I had too many other projects going on? Or am I dragging my feet on it because it's honestly not that great of a story and I don't enjoy writing it? Based on my honest answers to those questions, I decide whether to leave the story until I *can* focus on it, or to just scrap it completely. I've only scrapped a few stories so far.

My longer pieces linger in the "unfinished" folder longer. I have a novella-length work that is still in the first draft stages, and I started it in December! It's been frustrating - the reason I have not finished it is because of some weird mental block. I know exactly how I want it to end, I have the final two chapters outlined - but whenever I sit down to finish it, my brain freezes up and I can't write anything. It's extremely frustrating.

 

[oggbashan]

I have folders and sub-folders of unfinished stories for each year.

I don't want to count them all but I have copied some of the more likely ones to folders labelled Under750 and Over750 (words). The Under750 folder contains stories that are little more than basic outlines. The Over750 folder has stories that have started development only to stall.

In the Over750 folder are at least 100 incomplete stories. Some are close to 10,000 words.

Og

 

[jomar]

I have a few. Only two I really care about and they're on a hard drive that died.

 

[TE999]

I have a half-dozen unfinished stories lurking on my flash drives...I review them on occasion...then a new idea pops into my fevered brain and I shelve them again. One day perhaps they'll see daylight...until then they dwell in the shadowlands of my imagination and my storage files...there's always a new thought to supercede any contemplation of the old.

 

[bronzeage]

I have a million unstarted stories.

I usually write the ending first, then an outline of scenes which lead to it. I am not always happy with the result, but I usually hammer away until the story is concluded.

 

[litfan10]

Back in the start of my career, the fondly remembered Underwood Five Typewriter days, I had folders and folders of unfinished stuff. I don't know if it is age or computer formatting but now I find I hash out the story in my head ad nauseam until the characters are settled down and the plot is fairly locked down and then I fly on the keyboard. Usually everything that hits that stage gets finished. Sure, there are tons of characters and plots fluttering around in the head never to see light of day, but that is just the filtering process I guess.
Now to see if my first novel actually gets finished.

 

[meathead96]

I have a million unstarted stories.

I usually write the ending first, then an outline of scenes which lead to it. I am not always happy with the result, but I usually hammer away until the story is concluded.

I never know how I will end my stories. The ending is usually the very last, and even then, it tends to change several times. I usually do outlines first of the idea, then I mull it over to see if it is worth continuing.

 

[TxRad]

I have about 220 unfinished stories. Some are the next chapter to a longer piece. Some are short notes on great ideas that i haven't had time to get back to. Some are just unfinished from a few pages to over 50k words.

One day I will have time to really get down and dirty with them.

I get time ever so often and then I flood the site for a few days.

Never delete anything. Somewhere down the road it will come in handy. One of my mainstream novels is such a deal. My editor wanted something on a specific topic. I sent her the unfinished short story. After bouncing it back and forth several times it became the novel. It hit the stands last Monday as a matter of fact.

 

[meathead96]

I have about 220 unfinished stories. Some are the next chapter to a longer piece. Some are short notes on great ideas that i haven't had time to get back to. Some are just unfinished from a few pages to over 50k words.

One day I will have time to really get down and dirty with them.

I get time ever so often and then I flood the site for a few days.

Never delete anything. Somewhere down the road it will come in handy. One of my mainstream novels is such a deal. My editor wanted something on a specific topic. I sent her the unfinished short story. After bouncing it back and forth several times it became the novel. It hit the stands last Monday as a matter of fact.

CONGRATS and Good Luck!

 

[TxRad]

CONGRATS and Good Luck!

Thanks

 

[DorlaMoorehouse]

Never delete anything. Somewhere down the road it will come in handy. One of my mainstream novels is such a deal. My editor wanted something on a specific topic. I sent her the unfinished short story. After bouncing it back and forth several times it became the novel. It hit the stands last Monday as a matter of fact.

Awesome and congrats!

 

[TheeGoatPig]

My number is a bit bloated. I have some finished and downloaded stories mixed in. I will have to sort them out later. It's still over 130 though.

 

[litfan10]

Never delete anything. Somewhere down the road it will come in handy. One of my mainstream novels is such a deal. My editor wanted something on a specific topic. I sent her the unfinished short story. After bouncing it back and forth several times it became the novel. It hit the stands last Monday as a matter of fact.

This is awesome news TxRad. Congrats and best of luck!!

 

[TxRad]

Awesome and congrats!

This is awesome news TxRad. Congrats and best of luck!!

Thanks, guys.

 

[bronzeage]

I never know how I will end my stories. The ending is usually the very last, and even then, it tends to change several times. I usually do outlines first of the idea, then I mull it over to see if it is worth continuing.

I change the ending, more often than not. I find it much easier to write toward a destination, even though I may change direction and end up someplace else.

 

[sr71plt]

I mostly have unmined story concepts--unmined largely because of lack of time to write them or having a more insistent idea play through. I had one unfinished story in my computer a month or so ago--but I've finished that one now--and I remember thinking it was unusual I had only the one partial one. I do have some unfinished thematic anthologies in my computer, but I like to think of them as "building" rather than moldering.

 

[jehoram]

...or does everyone have a million unfinished stories?

Why? Why do these half finished gems rot on our hard drives?

Any ideas on how to jump-start a dud?


Please discuss.

I usually have four or five unfinished stories, but then again, I've got a lot of unfinished stuff that's not erotica ... two books in progress at the moment. So when I do write erotica, I can't let it take up too much of my time. Either the story has legs, or it doesn't.

I've "jump-started" a dud by re-writing it from a different angle ... from a different character's POV, or changing some fundamental part of the time and place in which the story is set. Sometimes, that's all it takes, because when you're inhabiting a different character's head and imagine the story from his or her point of view, it forces you to explore other ways the story can go.

Good luck!

 

[TxRad]

Maybe we could swap writers around. Send an unfinished story to the writer above you kind of thing.

 

[_Lynn_]

I have some unfinished stories, although I'm not sure how many since I have some on each of the three computers right now. And several finished ones that are crap.

 

[DorlaMoorehouse]

Maybe we could swap writers around. Send an unfinished story to the writer above you kind of thing.

I've done that before and it's great fun. I would definitely love to try it again!