Hello everyone.
Writing a novel is an exciting yet boring, refreshing yet tiring thing. When writing drafts, when editing them, we feel different emotions that our characters feel. Sometimes I feel privileged to have experienced various emotions when I'm in the middle of writing, and I wanted to continue exploring, hoping to meet new feelings.
I have the experience of writing more than one novel at a time. And I tell you, it's a troublesome thing, but I think, to some people, it's necessary as well.
Though I wrote multiple stories at the same time, I haven't actually published them as such. Writing as drafts is one thing, but refining them and posting them online and then keeping up with the pace that's promised to readers is an entirely different thing.
There's a saying, that one must never stand on two boats at the same time. And the reason is plain.
Writing multiple novels may not affect one's style of writing (given you're a capable writer), but it will affect the quality of it.
On this site, many authors are writing multiple novels at a time. I'm not saying they shouldn't do that. But I just want to share my experience with them, and hopefully, if it even helps them write even a bit better, then all my effort's worth it.
Currently, I'm publishing a novel called Shambala Sect. I have two other stories in waiting. I will start releasing them one day. Now, Shambala Sect will be my primary novel, and the other two will be my secondary novels.
I usually start my day with a primary novel. And if I got stuck at a scene, then I'll skip to another scene and come back later. And If I got bored, then I will either relax a bit, or write my secondary novels! To me, this is the key, guys and girls. Unless my brain's overcooked, I usually change stories and continue writing. If the story is at a crucial point, then I'll put more focus on the secondary novels, temporarily. To me, this method seemed to be working well. But how are you people doing it? Do you have a better method? If so, please share it here.
I don't think writing two novels is necessarily a bad thing. It has its highs and lows. Below, I listed some points on how writing multiple novels affect the authors, and readers, and the community as well.
Cons:
1. Plot of both novels won't be as sharp as they can be.
2. Your writing won't be as concise
3. Readers will blame that writing multiple novels is the reason for the chapters they don't like or during late releases or if the novel quality has dipped and such.
4. If the readers know that you're writing two novels, and the quality of the one they read has dipped, then they're more likely to drop it, since they might think that you're just not putting enough effort into their novel.
5. Extra burden for the author. Less sleep. More pain in the fingers. Eye burning. Butt burning as well, lol.
6. You will be thinking about two or more different fantasy worlds at the same time. That's never a good news. Even in dreams, we go from one world to another.
7. You may be biting more than you can chew. And it may lead to you dropping or putting a story on break.
Pros:
1. You will keep yourself busy, and hopefully focused.
2. You gain more writing experience.
3. There's more chance for one of the multiple stories to get famous, than when you're posting a single novel.
4. You can target different sections of the audience and increase your audience base.
5. If you don't want to write a story, for the time being, you will have another story to immediately write.
6. Keeps your brain ready to accept new ideas, and incorporate them into your fictional world. Since you write multiple novels, you get to build different worlds, so it for sure affects your pattern of thinking at a subconscious level, and it makes you ignore many things, in case if you're just writing one novel for a long time.
7. Be a boss who has multiple novels under his/her belt.
Okay. Having listed as many as I could... there's one last thing I want to say. In case, you're totally against the idea of writing multiple novels at the same time, you can do another thing. You can just write a flashback or a future chapter or something like that, relating the single novel you're working on. There are many ways to keep ourselves away from not writing. If you people also have some habits, then, please... I'm all ears.
Thank you.