The Journey to Writing a Successful Story: a tip book

Reviving an Old Project

I'm sure a lot of you have had thoughts about reviving some older projects. I know I have. But some of you may wonder if you even should do it, and or, how you could go about it.

In order to figure out if you should do it, think about this for a moment: are you currently writing something? If you are, you may want to hold off on writing any other books, so you're not going to lose interest in your current project. But if you're able to finish projects while juggling others, then you can proceed.

Now, reviving an old project isn't just about nostalgia. A lot of your older works most likely will be badly written. However, if you think the idea has potential, then you can revive it. But if not, it may not be the best idea. Sure, it gives you old memories, but the idea needs to be good. Unless you can make it better and improved. If so, then you can go ahead and revive it. If not, it's best to look at another old project.

Some may just wonder if they should revive it but don't want to rewrite it. If you don't want to rewrite it, then it's probably best not to go through with bringing it back to life. Reviving old stories is all about rewriting so-and-so. Not just taking an old story in your closet and posting it to Wattpad. You're taking it and making it better, meaning that you have to rewrite the book.

I'm sure with these new thoughts coming to the light, you're pretty sure on what your decision is.

Now, let's say you do want to go through with it but don't know what you should exactly do with the book. Well, most of the hard parts is already in front of you: you have an idea to go off of, you have characters, you have a way.

So now, it's just thinking what you should do. The best thing to think of as of now is to understand where you want to go with it. You could make the plot different, using the same premise maybe, but just switching it either a bit or more. You could recreate the characters, making them more interesting, or different, or focusing the story on a different character. Or you could take out certain characters, maybe those that aren't doing the story much justice.

You could look at your scenes, your ideas for the book - such as the conflicts and the climax - and wonder what you enjoy most. What you enjoy, you could keep, and you could recreate so-and-so better, in a different way. If that makes sense?

So for me, if I were to recreate my Juliet book (which I created long ago - like four or so years ago), I would make the scenes different. Making sure it wasn't so cliche. Honestly, if I were to rewrite it, I would just start off from scratch with a small idea: Romeo and Juliet, a modern love story without the hate of the families and without the tragic ending. What I wrote so long ago, was insane and it didn't go so well. I didn't even finish the book.

I would probably take some of the best ideas that I had for the story and put them somewhere in the newer version, but I'd most likely recreate it in a different, more improved way.

Now, let's say you haven't finished your book at all. It's an old book you wrote, and again, never finished, and you want to revive it and continue writing it.

If this is so, the best thought I could think of is for you to think: Why did you stop writing it in the first place?

If it was because you lost interest, but you want to dive back in, then the best way to go about it is to look for reasons why you lost interest and recreate and re-plan so you won't lose interest again.

You could continue writing it as is, even going back to rewrite what you don't like, or whatnot. Reviving an old project that was never finished could give you better closure for the book's idea, and it could allow you to make an idea you liked better.