One story at a time -- or more than one?

[SimonDoom]

I kind of admire authors who can sit down and start a story and see it through to the end without stopping and working on another story, but that's not the way I do it. I have about ten stories I've started, and when I reach a creative logjam in one I move to another. I find it's easier to keep writing this way. It can be frustrating to leave a story unfinished for a while, but in the long run, I think I'll end up writing more by skipping around. I'm curious if others do it this way or if they tend to stick to one story at a time.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I kind of admire authors who can sit down and start a story and see it through to the end without stopping and working on another story, but that's not the way I do it. I have about ten stories I've started, and when I reach a creative logjam in one I move to another. I find it's easier to keep writing this way. It can be frustrating to leave a story unfinished for a while, but in the long run, I think I'll end up writing more by skipping around. I'm curious if others do it this way or if they tend to stick to one story at a time.

That's me. Half a dozen stories on the go at one time and a backlist of ideas. I jump from one to the other until they're half done and then I totally focus on one to finish it off. Even the competition deadlines don't focus me that much.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

One or two, sometimes three at a time, but they are usually in the same series.

I'm on book 6 in a series right now...I have already started book 7 and now I know how, when and where book 6 ends.

I got suck in 6 so I went right to 7. Helped me out with 6 a whole lot.

I do have about 40 that I have started and got into a logjam and went to another until the logjams happened there...around and around we go.

 

[sr71plt]

I keep a "to do" list, but I usually write one story at a time, drafting it to the conclusion before starting another. I come back and review it later, though.

 

[NotWise]

I keep notes on future stories, but once I start writing a story I try to write 'till I'm done.

On second thought, that's now how I treat chapter stories. I'll write to the end of a single post then work on a different story before I go to the next chapter.

 

[SamScribble]

I often have a 'proper' story and a smut story going at the same time. And, sometimes, the 'proper' story ends up as a smut story, and vice versa.

 

[TxRad]

For Lit it is a dozens stories in work at once and another hundred or so in the background.

For mainstream, It is one at a time for the most part. Sometimes I jump ahead if I want to lay an Easter egg here and there.

 

[ElectricBlue]

One at a time for me, with maybe a vague thought as to what I might write next. Writing fits in around life, I don't have enough time as it is to even contemplate multiple stories on the go.

I've only had one or two false starts - if something stalls it's done so for a reason; even Frankenstein wouldn't be able to breath life back into it. I've deleted one spectacular fail completely, kept not one word, all gone. A couple of other starts - if I've not read them in a year, nobody else will. So if material can't be lifted, I'll probably delete at some stage.

 

[oggbashan]

For Lit it is a dozens stories in work at once and another hundred or so in the background.

...

My experience is similar. I have too many story ideas and while working on one story I can get an idea for another, break off to write an outline, and return perhaps to another incomplete story.

Sometimes I think of my writing process as laying mud bricks for a wall. The first layer has to dry and set before I build the next layer so I move on to the next layer in another incomplete story and so on.

I find it a wrench to go back to an earlier layer (even in an incomplete draft) and alter it to fit later plot developments. It has set and matured. Changing it seems to me to be damaging the wall.

 

[tomlitilia]

When I started writing here, I just did one at the time. But now I usually have a handful in the pipeline. I find it's easy to get stuck sometimes, and if I focus on another story for a while, the block has often been resolved when I return. If nothing else, it's more fun to put the effort where the inspiration currently lies.

 

[Halin24]

With one - perhaps two - exceptions I work on several stories at the same time. That is, for a period of a week or two. If a story isn't finished by then it is dropped for a while, a month or more usually.

My main problem is that I get ideas for new stories all the time and start writing an outline for it, then get sucked in and continue until I get stuck or bored and take a break to work on something else.

Sooner or later i get back to have another look at 'resting' stories, get interested and focus on them again until I drop them for a new period of rest.

It's frustrating and I have something like 300 stories resting, adding two or three new ones most weeks. Some have been 'butchered' to become part of others, some I have figured will lead to nothing and were killed. Still, the number of projects grow all the time with little result in terms of finished stories. I'm lucky that I write for the pleasure of it, and not to survive...

 

[NOIRTRASH]

A while back I discovered I'm a natural born screenwriter. A screenwriter I know pointed it out. Then I discovered almost all my favorite writers are/were screenwriters. Screenwriting is formulaic. Scenes last fixed amounts of time, WHAM BAM THANK YOU MAAM.

So we can work on lotsa stories simultaneously because all conform to the same pattern. I was a natural builder for the same reason, builders can do several projects simultaneously because all conform to the same pattern. Ditto psychotherapy. But not surgeons.

Wriuters need to learn what team they play for to learn if theyre suited for one thing at a time or multiple efforts.