Here’s some random ideas to explore in the phase between writing your novel and the editing-rewriting process. Just try ten pages of each, and see if suddenly your book kicks in? If that’s the case, you may need to re-write the novel from that perspective!
- Recast the novel. Different cast. Better/worse?
- Different POV. First person, third person, third person omniscient?
- Different Protagonist. Would the story be better told from someone else in the novel?
- Multiple POV. Would your story work better seen from the eyes of two or three in the book?
- A different event in the life of that protagonist. You could have the case of the right shoe, wrong race!
- Go ridiculously action oriented. Maybe your novel is just boring? Try adding in Hollywood cliches, tough guy lines and a car chase/gun battle?
- Different structure? How about seen as a flashback? or as lines in a diary?
Sometimes taking a novel that’s just not cutting it and re-writing ten pages of it shows you where the novel is lacking. Give some of these ideas a try, and see if it sparks creativity to get your novel in shape!
Or spark ideas for a better one.
