Revisit an Old, Failed Story

If you've been writing for a while, chances are you have the kind of folder I have on my computer, one labelled simply "Rejects." That is the folder where stories go to die. If a story flagged or didn't have a compelling enough main character or didn't seem to make sense, or just became uninteresting to me, I put them here -- I can't quite bear to delete them, but they're failures.

This week, though, try looking at your old, failed stories in a new light. It may have been years since you last looked at the piece, and now you are in a different place mentally and creatively. You have improved your writing skills; perhaps now you can faithfully depict that scene that you thought you could never write. Maybe you've learned a few more things about human behavior and you now know how a character would act in a perplexing situation. The point is, you change all the time, and a story that was "unsustainable" in the past might be viable now. Why not give it a chance?

To breathe life into an old story, first give it a quick read-through to refresh yourself of what you've got so far. Then ask yourself a few questions, and jot down notes for the answers:

Who is the main character?

What change will the character undergo in the story

What is the climactic scene?

How do you want the story to end?

If you find yourself coming up with new answers to these questions, then there's hope that this story is ready to be revived. Try adding a few scenes. It'll be slow at first and tough to get back into that particular story's world and frame of mind, but you'll get the hang of it, and you just might get a first-rate story out of it.

Comments

[SD]

I save all my old, rejected stories and go back and read them every now and then. They give me stuff to use in new stories. Sometimes I take another whack at them.

[Aleena M.]

This is exactly what I needed to hear. I am having a slight writer's block, so this article is very helpful.