Writing a book

[Abby is Q]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

Don't beat yourself up over it - we all have a long, frustrating learning experience.

Any ignorance you have would pale in comparison to my own. It seems like every critique session I've had leaves me looking back on everything I've written and think it's all garbage that'll never be publish-worthy. Biggest reason is that I keep hearing my characters don't grab people's interest enough, so they don't care about what happens. It would be nice for me to cut out excess words - with these issues, I've struggling to think about how to approach and fix them without having to redo the whole thing.

At any rate, keep on refining it and getting feedback - you'll have it nailed down eventually and it'll be great. Also, this experience will help on future projects.

On the other hand, I hope you're not throwing all those words away. If it's a runaway hit, you might want to have a little something extra, in case you want to release an unabridged or extended version of the novel (like King did with The Stand).

I don't think this will ever be a 1,500 page book anytime soon.

I'm not sure why you're characters aren't grabbing people, but my thought would be that there may not be enough detail. Perhaps going back and writing about your characters' pasts will help you. Go back to past events to detail why they react in certain ways. Even if they're the biggest a-hole characters, if you give them a past they'll have depth that'll connect with readers.

Since you mentioned The Stand, I'll use it as an example. Every single character in that book is fleshed out in great (probably too much) detail. You know about the time Mother Abigail was at the talent show. You know how Larry Underwood basically lost all his money. You learn about Nadine's experiences with a Ouija board. King goes into great detail about the freaking Trashcan Man.

These kinds of depths aren't necessary for every story, but I find that it helps to have more detail that I can cut out than less. Think about the things your characters like. What's their favorite food/song/movie/book? How do they dress? What kind of car do they drive? What do they do with their free time? Then give them a backstory as to why. Then when you have all that information, just keep what is the most interesting. It starts to effect the plot more and makes the characters more integral, as opposed to just being props in a story.