The Struggle of Sticking with a ‘Bad Story’

New writers seem to take one of two paths: some write their first story and stick through with it to the end. Others’ loyalty seems to be more with the act of writing itself, moving more quickly from story to story.

I fall into the latter category, and while I’m sure both groups have upsides and downsides, I have noticed the downside in my group, or perhaps just me specifically. And that is that I seem to fear a bad story. Not in a way that I am a perfectionist, I understand that my first draft won’t be good. But I also don’t want to see it. So I go through my first draft hardly looking back at all, and it’s a blissful state of delusion to be in. But then of course, that time can’t last forever.

I really came to realize this as I’ve been preparing for draft three of Project folklore, the book I have believed will be my debut novel ever since writing the first draft. And as I came to terms with some big structural things that would need to be fixed, I found myself wanting to leave it behind realizing just how much better the new idea that I’ve been world building is.

This made me pause, because until this point I had been so passionate about this story, really to the point of seeing it through rose-colored glasses. I don’t know about all writers but I know for myself, that I wanted so badly to be a writer that the idea that I may be bad at it was something I had to run from.

But in all this deliberation, I thought of something Abbie Emmons often says, “You don’t need to be a good writer, you just need to be a good editor.” I tend to subconsciously look at writing like this thing I must good at on the first try because there is no way I’ll suddenly get better on my second.

But here’s the thing writing rarely feels like I am creating something, instead, it feels like I am discovering something. Each new idea I have feels like it has been there all along, and I have just now discovered it. I know how whimsical and divisional that sounds but if there was ever a time for it, being a writer would be it.

Anyways, what have I learned?

If I want those new shiny ideas to really start being better than the old ones, I need to make those better first. Otherwise I will live in an endless cycle of chasing and never quite being satisfied.

And for goodness’ sake I need to relax with the fear of failure, when I started writing I loved the act of writing, I certainly didn’t do it for the feeling of impending doom that I have in fact been lying to myself and I am indeed a terrible writer.

And yes, I do still have so much to learn. But as unfortunate as it is, the only way I’ll do that, is to go back and learn from the mistakes I’ve made by fixing them.

I’ve heard all of these things being said for years. I’ve always known you need to edit to make a story good, but I never thought editing would feel so much like ripping apart my story and throwing most of it in a furnace. But I’ll just have to keep believing that I’m still discovering the story that has been there all along. Because delusion is the only thing that will get me through the trenches of editing, and who knows, maybe one day I’ll start to enjoy it.