WriYe Blog Circle: Trunking

This month, for the WriYe Blog Circle, we're talking about trunked novels.  Trunked novels are ones that have been set aside, for one reason or another, and you never get back to them.  Like the really nice shirt that you got, maybe wore once to a special event, and it's been in your closet, just hanging there, for the past two years.  That's what trunking a novel is all about.  I've done it and I will probably do it the rest of my writing career.  Sometimes there's just a story that you think needs to be told but, once on paper, it's a completely different story that you don't want seeing the light of day.

Let's get into the questions before I continue on with just rambling.

Have you ever set a novel aside?  What's the difference for you between trunked and simply setting aside?
Yep.  I've set aside at least three because they were just going nowhere.  Either the plot wasn't jelling or my writing was just horrible or I hated the characters.  I've also gotten through writing a complete story and then setting it aside to never touch it again.  There's no big rhyme or reason to it, other than feeling which story I really want to tell, but that's the bar I set for my stories.  Do I want to tell it?  Do I want to go through the blood and tears of editing (that's another post)?  Do I want to see it through to publishing?  The editing question is the most important.  If I don't want to edit a novel, then it's usually trunked.  If I just want a break from it, it's set aside and I'll go back to it in a month or two.  If I never go back to it, then it is trunked by default.

Was it finished or unfinished?
Both.  Like I said above, it can be a completely finished novel and I don't want to edit it.  Or I don't like the story.  Mystery of the Dark, the novel that I've been working on for three different NaNoWriMos, was set aside and tinkered with until things were just right.  That's why it took me two different NaNos to get to a complete rough draft and then the third to finalize who's story it really is.  That is a novel that is set aside vs trunked.  Power, the novel that I first won NaNo with, is trunked because I simply don't want to edit it the way it needs to be done.  I want to rewrite it, but there are other novels I want to write first.  Therefore, it's trunked until I open the trunk and drag it out into the light of day.  I do have unfinished stories that have been trunked but they're mostly short stories that I'm not sure what I want to do with them.

Why did you abandon that novel(s)?
With Power, it needs a really big edit.  I don't have the drive at the moment to go through everything that needs to be done.  I mostly want to rewrite the story, until I open it and realize all the good I have, but the writing is horrible.  It's one of the best examples I have of my old writing vs my new writing but I'd rather keep it in the dark.  With the other stories, some of it is writing quality and some of it is that I don't know what I'd do with the story when it's all done.

What would it take for you to go back to it?
Well... being completely done with Mystery of the Dark series for one.  Being stuck in a room with just Power and nothing else to do is another.  At the end of the day, I have to think if the story really should be out there.  Or if it's just me using a lot of fantasy cliches to string together a novel.  Or maybe a retreat of editing.  Who knows, really?  However, I do know, one day, I will go back to it.  I'll probably go back to a lot of trunked stories in the end.  They're good stories, at their core, or I wouldn't have written them in the first place.

So, that's it.  I hope you've enjoyed reading about my trunked novels and my not-plans for them.  Or plans that might be so far in the future that it seems out of reach now.  Dear reader, do you have any stories that you've put aside?  Feel free to share in the comments and I hope you have a pleasant day.