: Re: How do you know when to give up on a writing project? Writing is rewriting. The first draft of a novel is commonly riddled with mistakes: the beginning doesn't grip, the characters aren't consistent,

@Kristi637

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I always think of that wonderful scene from Michael Chabon's Wonderboys where the writer's ungovernable manuscript literally blows away in the wind. But the universe doesn't always give you signals that clear.
@Amadeus ' advice (which I upvoted) is excellent and probably the single best thing to keep in mind, but it still leaves questions around when to put a manuscript to the side. So here are my own guidelines:

If the book is more than halfway done, finish it. This is a rule I have for myself because I have a psychological aversion to finishing projects --as do many of us. So when I get close to the end, I know I have to soldier on through, despite how I feel about it.
If I'm rewriting, I stop when my rewrites aren't making the book better. In particular, if I revert a major portion of what I'm doing to a previous version, it's time to stop for at least a while.
If the book is finished, try to sell it. I think it was Roger Zelazny who said the only two mistakes writers make are (a) to not stop writing when the book is done, or (b) to stop selling before the book gets published. I know that I have a consistent pattern of loving my own work when I'm writing it, and hating as soon as I'm done, so I can't trust my own judgement. In the long run, the opinion of the publisher (and after that, the audience) is the one that counts. (The one caveat is that it needs to be technically perfect --spelling, grammar, etc. --before submitting it.)

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