Frustrated with rewrite

[AnyaKimlin]

I was so pleased with myself putting Mayhem into past tense and got further with it than ever before. But I can't help but still feel it doesn't work. What was Angus reacting to events happening has become him telling what he did. When I add more feeling and thought into it it feels wrong and out of keeping. But in past tense without the feeling and thought it is more boring and flat.

This will give Mayhem a better chance and allow me to re approach several agents who might be interested but I'm wondering if it is worth it. I'd love some thoughts even it is just a "suck it up and do it" which is what I suspect needs to happen. The second book is from a different character's POV and isn't so bad in past tense.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Just suck it up and do it. all rewrites feel like they're stinkers in my experience but then they normally come together. Also, you'll always have doubts if it's better...

 

[Toby Frost]

Here’s what I would do – and I am only speaking for myself here, so don’t do this unless it works for you. I would leave it alone for at least a month. In the meantime, I’d write something completely different. Maybe something different that you’ve wanted to do for a while, or something based on a very loose idea – a dream or a mental image, something like that. But I would try not to think about it for a while and only then come back to it. It may be – and I suspect that it is – that you’ve written something that works perfectly well, and that either of the approaches you’re thinking about would be fine. It might be that neither of them “doesn’t work”. It might even be time to step back from it altogether and decide that it’s as close to finished as it can be – I don’t know, but personally I think you’ll be better placed to make a decision once you’ve left it for a little while.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

I don't know if this is any help, especially coming from such a novice and someone who is as far from being published as anyone on here, but when I re-wrote my first novel I hated it too. About half way through I hated it so much I gave up completely and went off to write something else completely different as Toby suggests above.

I have been doing Nanowrimo and decided to write the sequel to the first novel in the hope it would give me some practice at 3rd person (I wrote the novel in 1st and a few people suggested 3rd would work better). What happened was that I fell in love with my characters all over again and now I'm busily rewriting the first novel (back in 1st) and getting on really well, many of my doubts gone with the mist. No doubt I'll hit the mid-novel blues again, but I definitely think the long break really helped.

 

[Dan Jones]

Have you given it to anybody for a read through yet?

I gave my MS to my brother after my second draft, and he cut it to ribbons (we don't pull any punches with each others' stuff, so I respect his opinion even though he's nearest and dearest), and pointed out so many headaches, plot holes, inconsistencies, and problems it made my head spin.

So I took a couple of weeks off from reading and writing, and then... sucked it up and started again. It was painful, but now after 5 drafts and three years I think the book is much, much better for it.

If you have someone you trust and who will be brutal in their reading of it, then definitely use it.

Oh, and suck it up and do it

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I have left it alone for over a year. In the meantime I've drafted three other novels (a wrinkly urban, the sequel to Mayhem and a murder mystery) and written the pilot to a sit-com This one has had twelve rewrites and I have only ever hated it in past tense. Trouble is present tense has given it one extra thing for agents to object to. More than one will reconsider it in past tense. (Even more will consider it if I make it medieval but I really, really don't see the point in that because my modern teen wouldn't work) I should add this is the thirteenth rewrite

In present tense it has had many beta readers but I'm only 30K into this rewrite but that's further than I've ever got in past tense. In present tense it has been good enough to get personal comments and feedbacks from several agents.

Originally I was going to moth ball it but then the reviewer/published author who was very enthusiastic and determined to get me published died on me. That forced me to go back over it and I haven't lost faith in the book it's good, and quite frankly is a waste on my hard drive.

It's just this horrible feeling that in order to stand a chance of getting it traditionally published it will need to be less than what it could be.

 

[Dan Jones]

Gosh, that's tough, I had no idea! The idea of 13 rewrites of my own MS makes me a little bit sick... that's tenacity for you.

Will you be offering it to betas in the past tense at all? I'm trying to pimp myself out there as a beta right now as I'm a noob, so would be happy to help if I can.

Oh, and very sorry but I had to laugh: "the reviewer/published author who was very enthusiastic and determined to get me published died on me." What a *******!

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Angus (the MC) is very easy to write. Any other book would be a chore but he's a gem and for all his answering back I enjoy his company. Of all my characters he's probably the most fun to spend time with.

I didn't know her very well beyond her being my best beta reader. She was really fired up by Mayhem - when I sent it to her the first time she read it in six hours straight and forgot to beta read lol. I'm not sure about offering it out because it'll depend how I am doing physically - I can be unreliable and let people down which I hate, so I tend to get dedicated teens who want nothing in return to read it for me. (their SPaG tends to be better than mine and they are very, very forthright in their views). It probably wouldn't have affected me as deeply but she had the same the illness as myself and I don't know exactly how she died as we had a solely online relationship her family probably knew nothing about. All I have is the obituary on the site she reviewed on which explained why she stopped emailing.

 

[tinkerdan]

I would think that the problem isn't going from present to past tense but more a problem of how the POV is influencing it. You say that the second book is from a different POV and is fine in past tense so the answer should lie right there. You might want to take a close look at what is working with the second book and how you can use that to make the first book work. I think that you are hitting close to the answer here in that it sounds more like a POV problem than a present to past tense problem. Some books beg to be written in present tense, but I would think that that would be the harder task and past tense should be just a breeze. Maybe it's the lack of challenge that makes you view the result as flat.

I think if it would make it more palatable to the agents it should be worth at least one more rewrite.

 

[HareBrain]

I think that you are hitting close to the answer here in that it sounds more like a POV problem than a present to past tense problem.

I wrote a novel (or half of one) in present and then tried to convert it to past, and I couldn't get it to work, and I realise now that was probably because the character wasn't one I could envisage narrating a story to someone else, either in writing or speech. It just didn't suit him.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm going to be controversial here. Present tense should be no barrier to being published if the book is good enough. Especially now when it's so popular, prevalent and widespread. So, maybe, when you were subbing it, it wasn't quite there yet (Abendau is contemporary in terms of when we were working at them and is much improved on the early versions, just because I'm a better writer now. What I can see now, frankly, is it wasn't good enough when I was subbing it. Harsh but true. But when it was revised then it got interest - same book, same approach, just the writing was better.)

You won't be hitting the same agents again (they won't look again unless they asked to), you're three years better as a writer. If you feel it should be in present tense, keep it and revise the book as the older, more mature writer, then sub it out. And sub it lots - it can take hundreds of agents to find the one that loves it.

 

[Hex]

It is interesting that feedback has identified present tense as an issue when, as springs says, it's pretty trendy in YA and in fantasy just now (I think, without the kind of agent feedback you've had, it would be a mistake for anyone else to abandon present tense in the belief it makes things harder to sell). Did the feedback say anything more specific about what the agents felt didn't work in present tense? Is it that they're perceiving it as epic, and present tense is less common in epic fantasy?

Respect to you, though. I find it very difficult to switch tenses -- I tried to rewrite KATE in present, and it really didn't work.

 

[jastius]

Is there a way to do both?
If he was "remembering" the events, couldn't it be as a flashback? So he is reliving the action bits and what he says, but descriptions are still in narration?

Sort of like a screenplay.....

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I would think that the problem isn't going from present to past tense but more a problem of how the POV is influencing it. You say that the second book is from a different POV and is fine in past tense so the answer should lie right there.

The second book is in two POVs from Angus and his wife's. I think it is simply both of them are older. In the first book this:

I wrote a novel (or half of one) in present and then tried to convert it to past, and I couldn't get it to work, and I realise now that was probably because the character wasn't one I could envisage narrating a story to someone else, either in writing or speech. It just didn't suit him.

Is the problem. Angus hasn't hit a stage where he is looking back on his life in the first one and it feels unnatural for him to be telling his story rather than living it.

I'm going to be controversial here. Present tense should be no barrier to being published if the book is good enough. Especially now when it's so popular, prevalent and widespread. So, maybe, when you were subbing it, it wasn't quite there yet (Abendau is contemporary in terms of when we were working at them and is much improved on the early versions, just because I'm a better writer now. What I can see now, frankly, is it wasn't good enough when I was subbing it. Harsh but true. But when it was revised then it got interest - same book, same approach, just the writing was better.)

I agree I am a much better writer and I can make the book better. It has been a specific comment from a handful of agents who have suggested they would reconsider it in past tense. When I asked more questions it was simply they didn't like present tense (the way I had used present tense wasn't really the problem) but they weren't put off by the epic fantasy in a modern world unlike others which didn't mind the present tense but objected to jeans and mobile phones.

You won't be hitting the same agents again (they won't look again unless they asked to), you're three years better as a writer. If you feel it should be in present tense, keep it and revise the book as the older, more mature writer, then sub it out. And sub it lots - it can take hundreds of agents to find the one that loves it.

I'm not far off the hundreds.

It is interesting that feedback has identified present tense as an issue when, as springs says, it's pretty trendy in YA and in fantasy just now (I think, without the kind of agent feedback you've had, it would be a mistake for anyone else to abandon present tense in the belief it makes things harder to sell). Did the feedback say anything more specific about what the agents felt didn't work in present tense? Is it that they're perceiving it as epic, and present tense is less common in epic fantasy?

Respect to you, though. I find it very difficult to switch tenses -- I tried to rewrite KATE in present, and it really didn't work.

The feedback on the present tense has been a mixed bag some have enjoyed it and commented positively about the way I've handled it. Those that commented negatively loved everything else but didn't like present tense. Just like the feedback on the contemporary angle has been mixed but mostly it has been we love the story, characters, the writing is original, strong voice etc but we don't know how to market it. I had decided that maybe removing one of the two obstacles might give it a better chance.

I think yourself, Springs and Harebrain are right. Maybe I should stick to my guns. Usually when I try something distance helps but with this it still just feels wrong. The perception that it is epic fantasy has been my problem with everything (Because it is epic fantasy - only the era might suggest otherwise). Epic fantasy doesn't do jeans apparently or present tense. Maybe there is the right agent out there but I'm running out of agents to send it to.

Is there a way to do both?
If he was "remembering" the events, couldn't it be as a flashback? So he is reliving the action bits and what he says, but descriptions are still in narration?

Sort of like a screenplay.....

I've actually done that in a different book but in this one he is living the action rather than reliving it. And for Angus that works.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

Have you given it to anybody for a read through yet?

I gave my MS to my brother after my second draft, and he cut it to ribbons (we don't pull any punches with each others' stuff, so I respect his opinion even though he's nearest and dearest), and pointed out so many headaches, plot holes, inconsistencies, and problems it made my head spin.

So I took a couple of weeks off from reading and writing, and then... sucked it up and started again. It was painful, but now after 5 drafts and three years I think the book is much, much better for it.

If you have someone you trust and who will be brutal in their reading of it, then definitely use it.

Oh, and suck it up and do it

My first 2 or 3 full drafts all suffered because of insufficiently critical readers ...

 

[Dan Jones]

My first 2 or 3 full drafts all suffered because of insufficiently critical readers ...

It matters so much doesn't it? My brother and I can rely on each other - he writes and records music, while I write books and stuff, but we've both dabbled in each other's areas of "expertise" if you like so we feel confident we can offer informed and honest appraisals. And if something doesn't work, we'll say so, because we know the other person wants to make the best possible piece of work.

And we're both incredibly lucky to be able to do that.

Did you manage to find "proper" readers in the end?

 

[FibonacciEddie]

I think that I did get the proper readers... and I would completely recommend this place... ie the Critique forum on Chrons.
But you also need a set of end to end readers, and that is a reasonably big ask

 

[tinkerdan]

I have found this to be true in my own writing, however::

I wrote a novel (or half of one) in present and then tried to convert it to past, and I couldn't get it to work, and I realise now that was probably because the character wasn't one I could envisage narrating a story to someone else, either in writing or speech. It just didn't suit him.

I remember a long discussion I had with a reader about present tense writing and how it was too immediate to them and might even be similar to the fingernail on chalkboard feeling. So even when we are happy with our present tense writing we should go back and turn off our filter that's preventing us from hearing the fingernail effect.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I remember a long discussion I had with a reader about present tense writing and how it was too immediate to them and might even be similar to the fingernail on chalkboard feeling. So even when we are happy with our present tense writing we should go back and turn off our filter that's preventing us from hearing the fingernail effect.

Yet the Hunger Games sold tens of millions.

When I first wrote Mayhem in 2008/9 (the very first awful draft) it was right before the first in the Hunger Games trilogy came out and I think you'd have a very good point. However, Suzanne Collins happened. The first NaNoWriMo that I did in 2009 it felt like I was the only one writing in present tense. 2010 questions on the NaNoWriMo forum about writing in present tense exploded with older members telling the younger ones they were being precocious or trying too hard. 2011 I wrote my story in third present tense (nobody liked that idea). Over the next few years there has been quite a change and now it's seen as normal to write in first or third with present tense.

My story is YA and there are now a number of present tense stories available. A number of teens on forums gravitate towards and seem to prefer present tense - another group are like myself and actually don't notice tense when reading.

Angus works in present tense because it is immediate and so is he. Even as he ages he's not a character to live his life wallowing in the past or caring about the future he's a bit zen like that. Its also part of his powers. He has the power to heal which is rare in a mortal and unheard of in a young mortal, because he doesn't hang on to grudges and forgives most things almost instantly.

I'm going to be controversial and take Springs advice. I'm going to rewrite him in present tense because that's what he deserves. And I'll finish my murder mystery story which is in first person past tense. If the latter gets picked up first I'll self publish Mayhem because it works as a self contained story.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

My first 2 or 3 full drafts all suffered because of insufficiently critical readers ...

Thanks for this - for various reasons I needed this post tonight. And Springs - with her trust my gut but also improve and make it better.

Critique is good but I also need to trust my instincts. I take critique really well so if I am not able to accept this one after a year or two...