'What is Written Without Effort.....

[Katie-Ellen]

Is read without pleasure', Samuel Johnson, quoted by @AgentPete (Not stalking, Peter, honest, but why waste...).

Cue fainting with joy and relief.

But have you ever abandoned a story as a dud? If you did, how did you arrive at the decision that it was a dud?
Terminal boredom at the thought of finishing it? Or, feeling that boredom, did you think, no, I can still use something in this. It needs a major rethink, but there's still a baby here, best not thrown out with the bathwater?

 

[Carol Rose]

I have an entire folder filled with story ideas I've abandoned. I don't believe any writing is ever wasted. One day I'll want something in there for another story, or will find a way to rework it and make something useful out of it.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I'm from a waste not, want not background, though I temper this resourcefulness with some laid-back if it doesn't come naturally, leave it. This doesn't mean that I'll throw something away, as I tend to store ideas, fragments of stories, names for characters and titles of poems in well labelled folders. Having a look at them from time to time, sets a part of my brain working on what could be done, sometimes throwing up more ideas.
I like to think that I'm imaginative enough to write about anything, though it would be with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success. But I do have a subject for a poem that has completely stymied me, whenever I go to write some verse to the title of 'Pique.'
That it sends me off in a fit of pique doesn't help at all!

 

[Amber Zade]

Is read without pleasure', Samuel Johnson, quoted by @AgentPete (Not stalking, Peter, honest, but why waste...).

Cue fainting with joy and relief.

But have you ever abandoned a story as a dud? If you did, how did you arrive at the decision that it was a dud?
Terminal boredom at the thought of finishing it? Or, feeling that boredom, did you think, no, I can still use something in this. It needs a major rethink, but there's still a baby here, best not thrown out with the bathwater?

Oh, I had to think but yes I did throw out a manuscript once. It was my first, written when I was 25. It sat in a file cabinet for another 20 years. I still don't know if it was a dud. I stopped messing with it because I knew I wasn't a historical romance writer and I just ... didn't love it. It had a good premise....... but I also have some good premises for contemporary romances which I have no intention of ever writing ....

I think the answer to your question is 'I made the decision because it wasn't what I really wanted to write.'

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I'm from a waste not, want not background, though I temper this resourcefulness with some laid-back if it doesn't come naturally, leave it. This doesn't mean that I'll throw something away, as I tend to store ideas, fragments of stories, names for characters and titles of poems in well labelled folders. Having a look at them from time to time, sets a part of my brain working on what could be done, sometimes throwing up more ideas.
I like to think that I'm imaginative enough to write about anything, though it would be with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success. But I do have a subject for a poem that has completely stymied me, whenever I go to write some verse to the title of 'Pique.'
That it sends me off in a fit of pique doesn't help at all!

A poem about curiosity piqued, or a fit of pique....yes, you could have fun with that...

 

[Island Writer]

I often freewrite from a single sentence pulled at random from a book I haven't read. It's incredible how stories blossom. If I like the idea enough, I'll work with it and see if there's enough there for a novel. If not, will it make an interesting short story? I find some stories come out almost perfectly formed while others need shaping. If I'm struggling too much trying to whip something into shape I'll walk away for a while and come back to it months or maybe even years later.

I have plenty of abandoned pieces, and a file full of potential story and character ideas... some of which surprise me when I re-read them as I can't believe I wrote them!

 

[Jennifer Stone]

I've abandoned quite a few projects but not because the story was bad, well they might have been if I'd finished them. If I let someone read a story before it's done, I can lose interest in writing it.
As for reading a dud, I wasn't impressed with 'Memnoch the Devil' by Anne Rice, which was a shock because I love the other vampire chronicles. Lestat spent too long standing in a bar, talking to the ghost of a man he killed in the opening paragraphs. I've heard it's a good book but I got bored and couldn't carry on. Now I'm older, by about 12 years, I might give it another go.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Getting 'Lord of The Flies' up to scratch was a major editing effort, apparently, but the results clearly well worth it. A classic was born. It was mainly a case of removing and pruning, apparently, not changing or adding. Something of Christian allusion went, and something of nuclear dystopia also got the chop.

Faber rejected it initially, as 'absurd' but it grabbed one editor, Charles Monteith.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15552698

I recently read his last book; The Double Tongue, about a woman who becomes the oracle at Delphi. It was published after his death, and is thought to have been at second draft stage, or at least, not at a final draft stage. By then he was such an established writer force, it was worth the effort to bring this one out into daylight. It's a slender, interesting, odd read, with a continuity issue; the narrator is 15 one minute and a few pages later she is old with nothing to convey all that passage of time. That may be part of the story's oracular enigma, or a reflection of its unfinished state.

 

[Jason Byrne]

I have some posthumously-published H.P Lovecraft stories that he was working on, that are literally half-done. Like three pages, and then

[manuscript ends here]

I've set aside a few projects. They're on hiatus, more than abandoned. One was so relentlessly intense and horrific that I had to set it down, in 2008. Then I started working on three projects, and set them down in 2009 to work on the series I'm doing now. One of the three I don't plan to revisit — the story line was kind of weak. After this series is done, I'll pick up the other two I had started, finish them, and take a look at the series I originally stopped, in 2008. I think I'll find that whole series was not up to par, anyway.