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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/10769
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

What should I do about a story that has been in uneducated development for the past ten years? Should I delete the story and do something else with my life? Below I provided a quick summary of the current development of the story for additional information.

I have been plagued with an interesting story of which I feel unqualified to write. It has been 10 years since I first conceived the plot of this story and it still continues to grow and improve over time in my head. The story mixes fantasy, science, and mythology which appealed to me as a scientist. I wrote four scenes (30 pages) and submitted for peer review to two English professors of whom I have met as friendly acquaintances in my old Electrical Engineering college.

I recently spoke with one of the English professors from my Electrical Engineering college. She told me that the story was based on an interesting idea, but the story was (1) unoriginal, (2) the dialogue was poorly developed, and (3) the character development was poor.

Reason numbers (2) and (3) made sense to me, because the submitted document contains scenes that are literally cut from the middle of the story with very little explanation of the character's and their back stories. I selected those four scenes, because the characters that spoke provided their quickest general overview of the story. I did not intend to give her the whole story as a 100+ page document, because the story is not completely written on paper yet. It might have been better to have given her a plot outline as opposed to a plucked scene.

Reason number (1) did not make sense to me. I was told by many that stories in general are not truly original. She may have implied that the mythology was simply a copy and paste with my own scientific spin, but I do not understand why that is necessarily a bad way to develop a story. Although when I asked her for specifics on what was unoriginal about the story, she failed to provide specific examples about the story. She did state general reasons such as the use of stereotypical character rolls and the plot was original, but she did not go into specifics.

Looking towards the future I feel that it is impractical for me to write this story due to my inexperience as a writer and not much time to develop creative writing skills. I am about to attend a graduate program in Physics, in another college, to spend the next 5 years of my life working 60 hours a week in the lab. I am considering to talk to the English department at my Physics graduate school to see if there is away to develop my creative writing skills, but I fear my Physics graduate program will keep me too busy to attempt such a feat.

I am also contemplating the idea of giving the story to someone else who has the experience and the time to write a good developed story and let them take all the credit. Giving the story to someone else seems rude and irresponsible to me though. I feel like I have cursed myself with this story and I wish there was away to forget about it and be relieved from this burden.

The scope of the story can be humorously summarized as four books: Book zero is a beginning of time and mythology like story. Book one is a medieval like story. Book two is a modern cold war like story. Book three is a space exploration like story. All of which take place on another planet.

The historical development of this story seems outrageous and crazy to me every time I look back since its beginning. The story start out as several unrelated, sometimes childish, stories that slowly over time joined together to form an expanding universe with some level of coherence?

Any suggestions to what I should with this story either deleting it or going with it would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Original score: 4