It’s winter in Queensland, and the cold weather has our Year of the Novel blogger, Caro, reflecting on day-to-day doubts that plague all writers and the larger fear waiting in reserve….
I don’t know if it’s the cold weather, the flu bug that’s going around, or the inevitable talk of apocalypse that accompanies a series of celestial events but this week I’ve been consumed by a series of niggly, self-doubty questions. As writers I’m sure you’re no stranger to bouts of insecurity—writing is, at times, an isolating process and when you’re in the middle of a project the line between genius and crazy narrows so much you’re never sure what side you’re sitting on. I regularly question characters, plot directions and, most especially, unexpected twists—but more often than not these questions make my writing better.
But the questions I’ve been asking this week are deeper and more unsettling. The best way I can describe it is a kind of overreach-regret. Not familiar with the term? That’s ok, I made it up… so allow me to define it.
You know when you decide to clear out an overstocked cupboard? You start out all gung-ho enthusiasm and good intentions, but pretty soon you find an item that belongs in a different cupboard, and you notice how messy that cupboard it. Before you know it, you’re emptying boxes, drawers and files onto the floor, caught up in the mania of the complete house overhaul you’ve been meaning to do for years. This is great, you think. Everything’s going to be so neat once it’s done, you tell yourself. Greatest. Clean-up. Ever.
But suddenly—and believe me, it always happens suddenly—the elation disappears altogether. You’re no longer a cleaning machine. You’re just a fool standing waist-deep in a pile of everything you own, painfully aware you’ve made a terrible mistake.
That’s overreach-regret, and if it’s possible I’ve done the literary equivalent—or, I’m worried about to. There’s an element of my story that’s bugging me, and I know I’m going to need to act on it before it festers into a terrible plot hole. But it’s a change that will lead to an entire overhaul and I’m more than a little nervous.
Has this happened to you? Did you survive the overhaul? Let me know—I’d love to hear your perspective.
3 comments ↓
Oh! I’m with you on this one. I’ve been trying to re-edit a biography that has been sitting in the ‘bottom draw’ for so long, it’s too embarrassing to mention the actual time-span. I like the concept of the ‘overreach-regret’. Do we always do this as writers? I think we do – well, I do. I go over and over my piece of writing until I can no longer see it and that’s where I’m at now. The ending to my biography, I feel, is a mess. The re-editing has gone well until I’ve reached the last four chapters, now I feel the whole manuscript is a disaster……. and whether to ‘overhaul’ the entire book. But, the ’sane’ part of me says just give it to someone else – then, make a decision.
Cheers! Karen………..
I think you need to be ruthless and kill it before the plot hole festers into a manuscript consuming abscess. You know it’s there, you can see it and you know what you have to do.
I’ve been there and it’s a major low point, no doubt about it, but I survived and the book went on to be published. What I learned is that killing darlings is easy, do it fast and don’t listen to them scream. And be prepared for a huge amount of work once you’ve killed them. I still have PTSD flashbacks to that mss debacle but I know there is no shortcut.
Phillipa, thanks for your advice! I’ve got blood on my hands now … but I’m starting to clean up the mess! I think wondering about closing a plot hole is one of those occasions where you know the right answer, you just don’t like it. So thanks for forcing me into it.
And Karen, maybe you should give it a go too? Running it by someone else certainly won’t hurt – I think as writers, we often agonise and over-think. I try not to let that get me down, though – after all, my over-thinking is one of the reasons I do write! Good luck, whatever you decide!
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