Would you rather… Start a new project in a genre that’s completely unfamiliar, OR revise a project that you know is a bloody mess?
An unfamiliar genre can be researched. Research can be fascinating and fun. As long as said research doesn’t become an excuse for not writing the story.
A bloody mess can be painful if you have to take out a favorite scenes or significantly change the plot. It is also intensely rewarding to salvage what seems like the ruins of your work.
What about it, writer friends? Would you rather start a new story in an unfamiliar genre, or revise a project that you know is a bloody mess?
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The tough part of this question is that I like challenges and both sound like fun challenges to me. I think it would depend on the unfamiliar genre and whether it sounded like I could find some books I’d enjoy reading in that genre for research. That said, I don’t like leaving things undone, so a part of me would probably just want to fix the bloody mess to my satisfaction before taking on the new project.
Nobody can answer that for you. We’re all built differently. I think it’s an interesting inquiry, so I’ll play along. I think it’s more productive to start something new, even if it’s a different genre. Some of this has to do with passion for me. If my heart is in something new, it’s going to come out better. I would try to take something away from the lessons the older project provided.
Much of my writing has been as a journalist covering communities, not writing about a particular specialty. So it was actually routine for me to write about something with which I was largely unfamiliar until I did some research and interviews. I thought of myself as an educator; “learn it this morning, teach it (write it) this afternoon.”
When I wanted to write for Yahoo News, for my first story it was trial by fire: I had 24 hours to both research and write about a court case that had 10 years of history.
On the other hand, when writing fiction, when I don’t have a deadline imposed by an editor/publisher or by myself, I can take forever to clean up a “bloody mess.”