Be free, drawer manuscript! BE FREE!
image from pixshark.com
image from pixshark.com
Basically, drawer manuscripts are books that were written - or at least started - and put away. Maybe they didn't get much farther past the first draft before the author realized they weren't working, or maybe they grew up more before they got to the 'nopenopenope not happening' point. Maybe they even spread their wings, leapt into the great unknown of the querying stage, and then epically faceplanted. Or perhaps they survived the query stage and flew off into the great big world to find a publisher... and smacked straight into a window. Either way, a novel that never really took off and got finished is usually classified as a drawer manuscript.
I don't believe in them.
Maybe it's naïve. There are probably people reading this and shaking their heads slowly, smiling wistfully as they remember the days when they thought that, too. But I honestly do not believe in drawer manuscripts. I believe there may be novels that need to be set aside for a time in favour of another project, so the writer is not being bogged down with a fledgling idea and they have time to allow inspiration to come on its own while another, currently-better-developed idea takes the most part of the writer's efforts and attention. But there's never an idea that's so bad it has to be stuffed away, never to see the light of day. It might not be all that similar to the original idea by the time it's all done, but it's still fixable.
In my opinion, there is no novel that can't be fixed. Even the first manuscript, which some people think should never, under any circumstances, be released into the world (some people say this is the Golden Rule of Writing), can be fixed. It may take years, and it may not be the first novel you publish, but - unless it's fanfiction, although you could argue that an alternate universe fanfiction could be adapted into something original with quite a bit of work - chances are it's fixable.
That's not to say that every idea you ever start writing should be fixed and sent out into the world. Maybe you bit off more than you can chew with the plot; it's alright, either trim it to something more manageable or set it aside until you've worked out the problems and/or gotten some more experience under your belt and you feel ready for it.
Maybe you found a novel exactly like yours already published. It's okay. Everyone does things differently. If your novel and the published one are both about young boys named Harry who learn they're wizards and go to a school for wizards where they have many adventures and eventually defeat dark wizards, well, maybe you might want to do some serious changes. But maybe your novel will evolve into something even better. If your book and the published one are both about, say, teenaged girls growing up in suburban neighbourhoods and learning to deal with the struggles that come with becoming an adult, well, there's a lot of ways to do that. Unless you read the book or a summary of it and find that your character goes through the exact same trials and tribulations, don't give up. Chances are, your end product will be miles away from the published book. Never assume that just because your idea is similar to someone else's that it's no good.
Or maybe you've written a book that was trendy (let's say a vampire book), and you query it around and maybe you get an agent or maybe you don't, but either way the general consensus is that you missed your chance. The fad is over. No one wants to buy your novel now. So what do you do? There's a few choices: keeping trying, wait, adapt it, or self-publish. If you're trying to jump on a fad, the best thing to do is make the fad new. Breathe new life into it. Make your own interpretation. Make it yours. Hopefully, you already did that. If you did, then you could just keep trying to query. There just might be an agent out there who's still willing to take a look. Or you can wait until the fad dies down and query it around again. It's not a guarantee that you'll be able to find someone for it, but there's a chance. Your third choice is, of course, to adapt it. Change it up a little. Turn vampires into something new, into a creature of your own design, or find another way to change up the plot and make it into a new creation. The last choice is, of course, self-publishing, but I don't really recommend this route. If you've had people say the book is good (and I don't mean your best friends and your family like it, but if agents or editors or reliable beta readers have said it's a solid novel), and you don't mind the risk of losing money (you have to pay for editing, formatting, cover, etc.), then by all means, go for it.
You might also realize that your novel just isn't working. Maybe you realized it was too much for you to do right now - too many characters or subplots or what have you. You've got a couple choices for this one too. You could set it aside and get some more experience or do some more research until you feel comfortable about writing whatever you were struggling with. Or you could recycle the characters or ideas, which leads me to my next point.
You might just decide you don't like your current project. You might have a specific reason, or maybe you don't. Maybe you just lost your passion for it. If that's the case, give it a while. Work on something else. If you still have no passion or inspiration, then move on. What I recommend is recycling. By that, I mean taking your favourite characters, ideas, subplots, what have you, and migrating them to a new project. They may go into your 'To-Be-Used' folder (or as I like to call it 'The Shelter for Storyless Characters and Ideas') for a while, but think about them. Then, when you get inspiration, bring those characters or ideas over and see if they fit. Maybe you'll have to split up characters who were originally together into more than one novel. I've done it before (although I also have small groups of characters - never more than two or three, because more gets complicated - that absolutely cannot be split up. So they stay together. In fact, two of the characters in the novel I'm rewriting bounced around about four or five different projects (the plots and other characters of which are tucked safely away for future reference) before they found a home. The novel I recently started always had the same cast, but went through about six plot and genre changes before I settled on what I currently have.
So what all of this adds up to, basically, is that any manuscript can be fixed, if you're willing to put in a lot of hard work. Of course, maybe you just don't want to fix it. If that's the case, sure, throw it in a drawer. Recycle the ideas or characters or store it away and come back to it when you feel more like it. But the one thing you have to do: even if you're upset about a manuscript that didn't get published or an idea that didn't work out, keep writing. While you're looking for the inspiration to fix your manuscript or idea or character or whatever needs fixing, keep writing. Work on a new project, or write a short story, or anything. Just always keep writing. And never give up.
Or maybe you've written a book that was trendy (let's say a vampire book), and you query it around and maybe you get an agent or maybe you don't, but either way the general consensus is that you missed your chance. The fad is over. No one wants to buy your novel now. So what do you do? There's a few choices: keeping trying, wait, adapt it, or self-publish. If you're trying to jump on a fad, the best thing to do is make the fad new. Breathe new life into it. Make your own interpretation. Make it yours. Hopefully, you already did that. If you did, then you could just keep trying to query. There just might be an agent out there who's still willing to take a look. Or you can wait until the fad dies down and query it around again. It's not a guarantee that you'll be able to find someone for it, but there's a chance. Your third choice is, of course, to adapt it. Change it up a little. Turn vampires into something new, into a creature of your own design, or find another way to change up the plot and make it into a new creation. The last choice is, of course, self-publishing, but I don't really recommend this route. If you've had people say the book is good (and I don't mean your best friends and your family like it, but if agents or editors or reliable beta readers have said it's a solid novel), and you don't mind the risk of losing money (you have to pay for editing, formatting, cover, etc.), then by all means, go for it.
You might also realize that your novel just isn't working. Maybe you realized it was too much for you to do right now - too many characters or subplots or what have you. You've got a couple choices for this one too. You could set it aside and get some more experience or do some more research until you feel comfortable about writing whatever you were struggling with. Or you could recycle the characters or ideas, which leads me to my next point.
You might just decide you don't like your current project. You might have a specific reason, or maybe you don't. Maybe you just lost your passion for it. If that's the case, give it a while. Work on something else. If you still have no passion or inspiration, then move on. What I recommend is recycling. By that, I mean taking your favourite characters, ideas, subplots, what have you, and migrating them to a new project. They may go into your 'To-Be-Used' folder (or as I like to call it 'The Shelter for Storyless Characters and Ideas') for a while, but think about them. Then, when you get inspiration, bring those characters or ideas over and see if they fit. Maybe you'll have to split up characters who were originally together into more than one novel. I've done it before (although I also have small groups of characters - never more than two or three, because more gets complicated - that absolutely cannot be split up. So they stay together. In fact, two of the characters in the novel I'm rewriting bounced around about four or five different projects (the plots and other characters of which are tucked safely away for future reference) before they found a home. The novel I recently started always had the same cast, but went through about six plot and genre changes before I settled on what I currently have.
So what all of this adds up to, basically, is that any manuscript can be fixed, if you're willing to put in a lot of hard work. Of course, maybe you just don't want to fix it. If that's the case, sure, throw it in a drawer. Recycle the ideas or characters or store it away and come back to it when you feel more like it. But the one thing you have to do: even if you're upset about a manuscript that didn't get published or an idea that didn't work out, keep writing. While you're looking for the inspiration to fix your manuscript or idea or character or whatever needs fixing, keep writing. Work on a new project, or write a short story, or anything. Just always keep writing. And never give up.
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