Wasted Stories

Early on in the writing of the dystopian series, I had attempted several different stories. Each of them ended up in the proverbial round file. I was on my fifth or sixth attempt when I found something that worked, and I liked.  I had a vision of what this world was. I knew when it took place and roughly how the world had gotten into the dire straights the characters found themselves in, but I didn't have a story. Each attempt, I found something wrong; for example, characters weren't believable, the characters didn't fit the mold to be a lead, or in one case, I found I just despised the character.  These stories felt like a waste of time because they weren't bearing the fruit of the story I desired to tell.  

On my penultimate attempt, I wrote about a character who emerged, who I really liked, but I didn't feel like he was primary character material. He and those around him would be good supporting characters, so I decided to try it one more time. I found a pair of characters that were genuine and fun. They were who I wanted to tell this story around. As the story began to take shape, I found that the previous set of characters and my newfound mains came together, and a whole story began to take shape.  As the tale firmed up, I found that some of the characters from my wasted stories were at least mentioned as the main characters had come across them in the past.  A book of short stories revolving around that world was put together, and some of the stories were converted into short stories and included in the book. 

While these stories seemed like a waste as I scraped them, it turned out that they gave me material for the book of short stories and, in some cases, comedic anecdotes for the stars of the story. Sometimes what seems like waste is just a stepping stone into the real story.