: Re: As a discovery writer, how do I complete an unfinished novel (which has highly diverged from the original plot ) after a time-gap? I am a reader more than a writer, and fantasy is my favorite

@Jennifer354

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Especially for a discovery writer, the first draft of a novel is often as much an exercise in planning the final version as it is an attempt to actually produce that final version. It may be best to think of your current draft as serving two distinct purposes: firstly, as an outline for a novel, with lots of detailed information appended to it; secondly, as a collection of prose, the best parts of which can be re-used in new drafts or even in the final version, but only if they fit your evolving plans for the novel.

You could take the first of these purposes literally, and extract an outline from your draft. You have done your "discovering", great, but now create a summary for yourself that helps you see the structure of the story. You can then make improvements to the outline, thinking strategically about the entire story, and return to the draft to adjust accordingly.

Generalising, it's great that you did a lot of discovery writing work, but now you can start analysing. Look at your characters and analyse arcs, motivation, relationships, etc. Look at your plot and your setting, your theme and your pacing, etc. You may find that too much analysis before writing stifles your creativity--so, instead, you are a discovery writer--but that does not mean you should never analyse.

Analysing your current draft should also help you get going again, both by motivating you to work, and by giving you a creative push. It's work you can do without "inspiration", so as long as you are motivated to work on your novel in general, you can get going with the analysis. And, as you analyse, you'll start coming up with lots of ideas for new writing you want to do.

If you don't like the concept of "analysing" when it comes to creativity, think of it instead as taking a 30000 ft view. You have this 1st draft but you are not a slave to it. Read it, think about what is best about it, where you want to go with it in general. Then dive back into the details of writing one word after another. Again, though, you may not be an outliner, but many of the tools that an outliner uses from the start of their novel will be useful to you now. You are at a point where you can start understanding the structure of your novel, even if you did not consciously design this structure to begin with.

The second function of your first draft is the more obvious one. If you have large chunks of good prose, obviously you can re-use it, with any necessary adjustments. But this comes after taking the 30000 ft view and deciding where you want to go.

By the way, a very simple, practical reason to push on and finish the novel is that it's easy to practice writing beginnings, and hard to practice writing endings (because, all to often, people quit before finishing a novel). So, new authors often get good at writing beginnings, while they are still not good at writing endings. Bear in mind the ending does not have to be perfect, especially if your goal is to finish your first draft. It especially does not need to resolve all mysteries, reach a satisfying end for all character arcs, etc. Focus on the main character and the core plot issues, and write the best ending you can. Now, you have a complete first draft to work with, which is much better starting material for the next phase of your work.

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