Advice needed for tackling old WIPs

[graychalk]

Hiya fellow writers! I'm looking for some thoughts / advice / suggestions regarding something I feel rather conflicted about (in that I keep swaying back and forth between what to do), and I'd really appreciate any opinion you may have on this.

Basically, I'm digging up a WIP from about 10 years ago as it's my intention to go back and hopefully finish the darn thing. In terms of where it was left off story-wise, I'd say it's roughly around midpoint. But what I have so far was also written so long ago that it not only has large areas that need major fixing, a character I'm likely taking out, another character I might insert, and several scenes I know are missing... but the tone and style has also evolved. Some of these changes require complete rewrites of certain chapters, others not as drastic.

So... the question I keep bouncing back and forth in my head is this:

Since it's been so long, would it be better for me to just start fresh and write the entire thing from the beginning again? Or would I be better off continuing the story and then coming back and heavily comb through and fix the first half?

I feel like the second option would be the "smarter" choice (however hard it might be for me psychologically because I know myself and I'd keep thinking about all those things I wanted/needed to do about the first half). I'd have to try to find a way for it to not distract me. On the other hand, while the first option of starting the whole draft fresh from the beginning sounds very appealing, I'm almost afraid that that way is a rabbit hole where I end up having a WIP that will never finish. What do you all do when you return to work on very old unfinished drafts?

Help? :\

Comments

[splinteredstar]

*looks at the pile of projects that have been in stasis for, in some cases, several years* This, my dear, is an /excellent/ question.

I think what I tend to do is reread what I have so far, and decide if I hate it or not. If not, I pick up where I left off - if I do, I ax the whole thing. I don't know, I'm sort of stuck on that very issue with one - have to add a new character plot line, and I can't figure out if working it in would be more or less annoying than just starting over. (Slowly deciding on the "starting over" side)

[graychalk]

Heh, we're talking about something I wrote over 10 years ago... hating everything and feeling suicidal while reading is likely inevitable. :P But if I try hard to be objective, I have areas that are also quite good and others where it's just a matter of editing and tweaking to get it up to par. Perhaps I should pick out areas that need a complete overhaul and tackle only those... hmm.

Regarding the dilemma of adding a new character - the general advice I see is that you make a note in your notes to add this character, and then you continue writing as though the character was there all along. If you know the areas the character would need to show up within the parts you've already written, you'd note that down too as a reminder.

Personally, I've found that this works best when it isn't a major character. But if it's a big character that shows up and makes a difference all over the place, I'd have at least rewritten the areas that have the most impact. That's mainly because I'd be too worried about unexpected development that would then affect how I'm planning to write the areas I haven't written. I'm lucky that for this story, the characters I'm inserting/deleting aren't so big that I absolutely cannot "pretend" it's done for now.

And good luck to you! I have large piles of projects in stasis too - though this current one is the longest standing one.

[splinteredstar]

Yeah, I thinking picking out the bits that are worst might make it less...overwhelming.

Okay, see, what happened was this. First draft when I was...15 was about this one character primarily. I ended up hating the draft but being quite fond of the characters in it, so I kept them around in my head. Then a few years back I dusted off the idea for NaNo and redrafted it, and the original main character showed up but I was /rapidly/ distracted by an entirely new character, and so original main sort of fucked off in the woods for 15k, and didn't actually do anything interesting.

I like them both, so I want them both to have equal billing, I just need to figure out how much I want their story lines to interact. I feel like I should have them bounce off of each other, but that exponentially increases the amount of changes I'll have to make.

....I think I might just have to redraft huge chunks of it... ah well.

Good luck! I hope your editing is helping~

[graychalk]

Wow, okay, I think yours is definitely of the more complicated kind. It sounds as though your new character is as important as the main one you originally started off with. It also sounds like it's the kind of insert that would highly affect the plot and how your scenes play out... and therefore, as you've said, increase the amount of changes you'd have to make. :P

Do you work with outlines and in-depth plotting? If you do, perhaps you'd benefit from taking time away from the draft to do some of this first - just so you can figure out where their stories cross and how they affect each other. That way, it might be easier to figure out where you need to change stuff and so on.

Redrafting is no fun. I feel your pain. D: