What to do when you realize: "Holy crap, my novel that I have worked so hard on is a failure!"
The plot has too many holes in it, or the protagonist isn't engaging enough, or it's just plain poorly written. What do you do now?
First, take a deep breath. Cry a little. Then get back to work.
Your options for what to do with you failed novel are manifold. Start from scratch. Rewrite entire sections if that's all that's needed. Create a new premise. Or delicately place that manuscript you have slaved over for eons into a shoebox, close it, tape it shut, and slide it under the bed. Leave it in the dark and let it sleep the long sleep of other failed novels. Pick whatever works for you.
I've had to do just that with A Crow Over Altoona, my third failed novel, just last night. (I know...great title, isn't it?) I was reading QueryShark, a blog by a literary agent that seeks to teach people how to write effective query letters, and exactly the premonition I had nearly a year ago to this day—that my novel was no good—was hammered home just as I was thinking of sending out queries for it again.
The QueryShark identified the mistakes I suspected, and dreaded, were true:
1. I had too much story and I didn't know what to do with it. My manuscript ended up longer than it needed to be and, what's less fixable, there were too many storylines (and characters) going off in too many directions.
2. My protagonist just didn't have the motivation they needed. In any fantasy, where the protagonist needs to go off and save someone (their father, in my instance), it (1) helps if they actually care about their father, i.e. lived with them, loves them, at least actually knows them. And (2) there's something else other than just the fate of the father at stake. Think of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Not only is 13-year-old Meg Murry's father imprisoned and in need of saving, but there's also "the black thing" which threatens the entire universe. Whereas in my book, with just the father in need of saving, the stakes are just not high enough.
3. I did not perform adequate market research. I wrote a book with a 13-year-old protagonist but I did not write a book to be read by middle-graders or even 13-year-olds. I read a book mostly for myself—not my target audience! I'm not even sure when I came up with the idea for A Crow Over Altoona that I truly considered who would be reading the book (as in actually buying it on Amazon, sitting and reading for hours on end...).
These are all lessons learned I should've already known, I say to myself. These are such rookie mistakes! Well, I don't know if I could have learned them in any other way. I had to actually commit the error—and do so egregiously, with a whole novel completed and then realizing it's fatally flawed—before I learned.
So, under the bed with you, Crow, and good riddens. After something like two and half years, I'm tired of working on you.