The Devil in Manuscript: Nathaniel Hawthorne
“I do believe,” said he, soberly, “or, at least, I could believe, if I chose, that there is a devil in this pile of blotted papers.”
I was having a conversation with my online author friend Galen Kindley, and the topic of abandoned manuscripts came up.
Does everyone have a book graveyard at their house? Either a manuscript that they gave up on (or got disgusted with) or a novel they bought and intended to read until it started dragging in the early chapters?
Even Samuel Clemens had an abandoned work-in-progress: a nonfiction book on England that he was trying to write at the same time as Tom Sawyer. Can you imagine? Writing Tom Sawyer would be draining enough.
Sometimes I’ll wonder if I’ll ever go back to these rusty old projects of mine. I’m thinking no. Maybe the original idea was a good one—I know it must have been one that I was originally excited about, or I wouldn’t have started writing. But at some point I realized it stunk. I hate to put it so bluntly, but there it is.
What made Samuel Clemens give up? Did he read another author’s fabulous account of England and realize his came up lacking in comparison? Did he just take on too much at one time? Was he more excited about his Tom Sawyer WIP (who wouldn’t have been?)
Here’s what made me give up on the projects in my graveyard:
My protagonists didn’t have “it.” They simply weren’t interesting enough to carry a story.
The plot didn’t have a hook. It was too derivative of similar books in that genre.
I’d written myself into a huge hole. I do this with other books, but can always write my way out of them. But with these books, I was so disgusted with the WIP by that point that I let my protagonist live eternally in my plot hole.
Do you have a manuscript graveyard?
Not yet. But I’ve got a few ideas for books I’d LIKE to write! Hopefully they’ll become manuscripts one day.
I’ve got enough discarded projects to fill two graveyards.
I keep waiting for some kind of Pet Semetary moment where my laid-to-rest manuscripts will come back to life. That would be cool! And a little unsettling, too, I guess.
Don’t you think this has changed in a way? I used to have scraps of paper and short files filled with a page or two. Now, I’ve got files on the computer and on disks. The snips have advanced with technology and occasionally I stil find a tidbit on a file here or there. If anything, the compact nature has just made me a bigger packrat.
Good point. I have both paper versions of unpublishable material and digital versions. It’s much easier to keep your graveyard on a USB drive. The paper stuff looks like clutter and I have much less tolerance for it than the benign-looking thumbdrives.
Elizabeth
I have a whole box of unpublished short stories and three unpublished book manuscripts. I’ll never throw them away. They remind me how hard I’ve worked and why it’s so important to keep learning, keep submitting, keep writing.
Patricia
I don’t have a manuscript graveyard but I do have openings and first pages to stories that seemed like a good idea when I thought them up and then didn’t once I started writing them down.
Jane Kennedy Sutton
http://janekennedysutton.blogspot.com/
So, I can now die and go to heaven…or not. An expression of wonderment and ecstasy, kinda like the little boy in, “A Christmas Story,” blankets my face. My name… there….in full living color for the world to see on THE premiere blog for writers. Twain, Faulkner, even Shakespeare has graced this page, and now…me. I have indeed, arrived. Sigh. (Your fifty bucks is in the Mail, Elizabeth.)
Oh, yeah. Dead, partially completed former WIPs? You bet. Bunch of ‘em. They’re skulking in the closet like a pack of rats, or, maybe nest of roaches. None, however are fit to see the light of day. Should be using them to light the barbeque pit. I wonder if there’s some deep-seated physiological reason why they, like crippled dogs, the retarded cat, or alcoholic Aunt Bessie are kept, stashed secretly away. Unlike the above, whom we sorta have to keep, dead MS can be tossed. Think I’ll go do that right now!
Best Regards, Galen.
GalenKindley.com
Gosh, Galen and Alan seem to have “Night of the Living Dead” manuscripts. Mine are completely docile and dormant….which, maybe, was their problem all along.
Elizabeth
I don’t have a manuscript graveyard. I have one book published and four in the pipeline, so anything I write is material I can use. I don’t write anything at this time that is irrelevant to my themes.
Great question. This will keep viewers engaged and coming back to your site.
– Steve Tremp
http://stephentremp.blogspot.com/
Sigh. At this point they are all the digital versions. Can’t seem to hit the delete key on them. I guess I keep hoping a ray of inspration will hit that will generate masterpieces out of the files. Hope springs eternal and all that…
Nancy, from Just a Thought…