It's Okay to Edit

A couple of months and a year ago, I published an article called Don't Publish Your First Story! A Lesson (and encouragement) to Young Writers. I must say ... I disagree with some of the advice I gave in that article.

Will everyone always publish their first story? Absolutely not. But should you abandon projects without reason, even if, with a little help, they could be great?

No.

This summer, I changed things up. I messed around with website designs, with styles of writing, even with the question of whether I still wanted to write (spoiler: I do! Well, I guess this blog kinda spoiled that already). But one of the biggest changes I made this summer was completely changing my work in progress.

To begin with, let's go back in time a while. Well, a little more than a while: just about three years, to be exact.

To set the scene: I've been at home for the past month, only around my family. Sound familiar? Well, it's March 2020, and Covid.

Blocked as I was from interacting with most of my friends (which, really, didn't add up to many people anyway, but that's not important), the only thing I could do (beside school) was read, imagine, and write.

At the time, I had recently been introduced to the Ranger's Apprentice series, as well as The Wingfeather Saga. I've always spent hours and hours daydreaming, but that time in my life drove me to creating a world and a story.

I still remember the time I first penned words to my story.

I was in bed, sitting up a little as I waited for my mom to come in and say goodnight. My notebook was set on my blanket, and I had a blue ballpoint pen in my hand. As I heard my siblings talking quietly in the other room, I began to write.

If they are found, all is lost...

And aside from a few tweaks, that scene? I've incorporated it into almost every draft of my project since. (Side note: want to read that scene? Comment below and I'll post it!)

For about two years, I worked on said project (dubbed The Saga of the Stars) for years. It went from being seven books to three books to four books.

And then, in the May of last year, I decided to stop it.

"It was my first project," I told myself. "I've learned a lot from it. But it's time for me to move on."

And so I did. I had over 100,000 words collectively, and I hadn't even technically finished writing the series. But I had seen a writing prompt (sometimes the person you’d take a bullet for is behind the gun) and I wanted to write something else—seriously—now.

And so my project, Take These Broken Shards, was born.

I worked on this project decently hard. I used it for National Write a Novel Month, by the end of which I had about 25,000 words in it. Over the next year, I wrote in it, and right now, I would bet I have about 35,000 words in it, over all of the documents I have.

But this summer, I was sitting at the table, trying to brainstorm. I kept thinking, over and over, about how my two main projects (TTBS and SOS) had basically the same villain. Additionally, I realized two things: one, that the main problem I'd had with the series of SOS was that I had no idea how to actually end the epic fantasy story, and, two, that the stories would merge perfectly.

And they did.

It was hard, at first, because I had to delete characters, and change personalities, and remove certain villains. But the end result is so much better than either of them had been before.

So if you're struggling with a few stories, stories which perhaps are similar in any way, shape or form, experiment. Mix and match. Maybe one combo won't be perfect, but who's to say the other ones won't be?

It'll be okay. Just try it out, and chances are, things will work out.