Thread: Need advice? Stuck in my novel

Hi guys! I've been working on a novel for 5 years on and off, the whole story is very detailed in my head but it takes some time for me to actually sit down and write it, and my main problem is that even though I am in love with my story and its characters, the part I have to write is a little bit boring -not for the reader but for me I've checked with people that are willing to read it- and so I've been stuck for a year or so, always thinking and adding to the main story but not actually writing it.
That was just context, my question is really.. Is it okay to write the novel not necessarily in the way its supposed to be read, but in the order in which you feel like writing? i.e writing chapter 7 before writing chapter 6 and then connecting them because you wanted to?
I know that as long as you're writing it and in the end it's going to work, the things that go in between dont matter much, but I was wondering if jumping back and forth in time -knowing that my characters change a lot throughout the novel- makes it harder to write?

Just reread this and it's a stupid question, but I'd appreciate it if you could share anything you'd like with me, I'm pretty insecure about going back to writing.

Ultimately its your story and you can do it however you would like. Honestly my only advice to you is this: If you choose to write chapter seven before chapter six, that is okay as long as you are very careful of continuation and timeline errors, and you should be willing to review and possibly rewrite if you find consistency errors.
Best of luck!
-Duality.

I write special scenes for my novels when they occur to me. It's better for me to get them out of my head so I don't have to keep remembering them. As Duality23 says, you need to keep track of the things that change. When the time comes to insert the scene into the story, it's edit and rewrite time. With my first book I wrote the last chapter first. I had to tweak it everytime a particular relevant situation in the book grew or changed, but I had it there, I knew where I needed to end up. It's your book, you just do what you need to do to get it finished

As long as it doesn't produce contradictions, by all means write the chapters in whatever order you like best. My story is going to have 32 chapters. The first 17 are written. Chapters 20, 22, and 27 are also completed in full. The remaining chapters, with one exception, are all at least half finished, and some are significantly further along than that.

I can get away with this because, like you, I've been planning my story for years in advance of actually writing anything. I think that if you're confident in your plot, timeline, and characters, there's nothing wrong with writing in the order that's most productive for you.

I agree with what everyone else has said. I was nervous about this for a long time, too, Belle. I had this pre-conceived notion that I was "supposed to" write in a linear fashion, from beginning to end. I was never able to stick to it and got discouraged that I kept writing out of order, which just stymied my progress.

I can see now that it's kind of a silly notion to begin with. I mean, whole scenes sometimes just occur to you on inspiration, and you're supposed to ignore them because you haven't got that far in the story yet? You can lose really good stuff that way. Revisions may be necessary if you decide to change things, but on the whole, it shouldn't be any problem. IMO, it will come out better that way. Just make sure you read the whole thing through--in order--from time to time, or at least at the end. That might give you fresh ideas, too.

Good luck.

Thanks guys! I'd thought about what you told me, but I guess I needed reassurance. I'll go back to writing as soon as my school gives me time and I'll post the first chapter of the novel soon since that one's finished

It must be down to preference. I prefer to write the chapters in order and don't like to jump about randomly. But I have done so before when I have had an idea for a particular part of the story. But I find going in order of chapters to be the quickest way of completing.

Hi Belle..funny when I started reading you post it reminded of Star Wars.
As you know the star war saga did oame in different order to the usual ascending numeric.
I think it was released like this:
4 5 6 then 1 2 3.
So really your novel can follow suit and you can have different chapters at different time just like Star Wars, I do not see why not.
I hope this help..if any

It does help! I posted the first chapter... Its a bit misleading since the story isn't like the first chapter at all, its sort of a prologue. If you feel like it, I'd love if any of you could take a look =)

http://www.writingforums.com/fantasy...day-party.html

So Belle, my first reaction to that would be to say no right away, I have always been told not to skip ahead when writing because it makes it hard when you come back. However, I have successfully done this before so it is really up to you, do you feel okay with that. A suggestion I have for you is that you post your work on Scribophile(Scribophile, the online writing group for serious writers) That way you can make it one long stream including all chapters if you have a paid account and people can do inline critiquing and tell you if anywhere specific has problems.