The day my entire novel outline fell apart in three hours

Spent like 6 months mapping out this fantasy story, had every chapter planned out with colored index cards and everything. Then last Tuesday I realized my main character's motivation made zero sense because I gave her a backstory that contradicted her actions in chapter 4. Had to throw out like 30 plot points lol. Has anyone else had to scrap major work after thinking it was solid? How do you bounce back from that without wanting to quit?

2 comments

2 Comments

danielhenderson1mo ago

Six months of colored index cards, huh? I had a detective novel where the killer was secretly the victim's twin brother, except I forgot twins don't share DNA and my entire forensic evidence trail turned into confetti at page 200. My advice is to wait three days, then skim what you saved with a beer and a grudge, let the dumb parts die, and start fresh from the part that still works. Your plot probably had some decent bones under all those notes anyway, maybe just fewer cards this time.

grace_knight701mo ago

Dumped a whole manuscript once because I realized my detective was colorblind halfway through and couldn't see the red thread on page one.