Remember that really bad story you wrote when you were ten?

[kaylynx]

I'm sure we all have 'em!

I have notebooks upon notebooks of little stories I wrote when I was growing up. When we moved into our house, I came across The Box that had all of these notebooks in it. So, I took a trip down Memory Lane with my husband and read some of them to him.

Naturally, they were awful and cringy, but I read one to him that he said, hey, that's actually not a half bad idea.

I mean, it had actual emoji's in the middle of sentences and I used this gem of a sentence:

"And I kicked him between the legs... if you know what I mean "

And my main character's name... WTF was that?? Zodiaceena. Of course, all her friends called her Zodi. By day, she had blonde hair, and it magically turned black at night.

A serious plotting weekend and several weeks of outlining later... the Zodiac Chronicles was born... or... reborn?

The Zodiac Chronicles | Tapas

(And no, no one kicks anyone between the legs! LOL!)

So, TLDR: I'm curious if anyone else has a novel (or even a comic) that they may have written when they were much younger that actually had potential and decided to rewrite it? Maybe it's not even a story you wrote when you were younger, but just a couple years ago that you rebooted. Are you proud of the reboot/how it came out/is coming out so far? Did you take any elements of the old story and carry it over into the rewrite?

I didn't carry over anything major except for the fact that the Zodiacs - and other constellations - come to life and interact with the characters in the story to help them save the world, of course!

And, hey - maybe if you're stuck on new story ideas, this can be your sign to say - hey, maybe revisit those terrible stories you used to write! There may be something there that you don't even realize has potential!

Bonus: I forgot I did a "reading" of it a few years ago and posted it on YouTube for a friend so, here, have an old, cringey video of me reading my old, cringey story (excuse my sniffling congestion, it was allergy season lol!)

[thecrystalrook]

I sure do it was a video game that I eventually turned into a manga

Space Pirate | Tapas

[crowstories]

Ten year old me wrote SO MANY bad stories.... the cringe is real.

But yeah, I know what you mean

[Crusoe]

Haha I'm probably never ever going to reboot the stuff I wrote as a kid, it's very cringe and I thought I was writing the next Tolkien story haha.

I had a fantasy story where kids were kidnapped and needed to escape from a quest, puzzle and trap laden castle. (Im still fond of it and some aspects of it are really fun, but it's still pretty bad.)

Also had a twilight related story, one about a boy and his monster family and a book for superhero themed shortstories.

[vothnthorvaldson]

When I was really young I was writing nonfiction. Which is both less embarassing (no crazy plot ideas) and more embarrassing (very naive and/or inaccurate. Who wants to read the ideas of a 10-11 years old on biology or on international politics? Not my older me anyway ).

I started writing fiction in my teens, and there is one story which I rewrote once already and plan to finish one day. It is partially autobiographical even if every character in the story is fictional. The main improvement with the newer version compared to the teen version, is that the teen version was pretty much 'look! It's NOT me! It's a fictional character!' but actually it was totally me and the fictional character had no other personality traits etc.
The new version keeps some autobiographical aspects, but they are divided between several characters in a less obvious fashion, and every character has their own fictional identity.

PS: I also came across The Box in my spring cleaning this year

[ApplesOverIndia]

Yes! I wrote what started as a short story when I was 12, and it evolved into my first real attempt at a novel. Over the next three years I got about 26,000 words in and had a very very loose outline. However, I got stuck and never finished it.

My mom loved it, and kept asking when I was going to finish it. I tried to revive it in college, revamping the plot a little bit and giving the characters a little bit of personality. However, I just couldn't get behind it - it still felt childish and unrealistic.

Fast forward to this February, about 11 years after the initial attempt. I really didn't want to do work one day, so I ended up going back to that story instead and tried to fix the outline. I cut a lot of characters, added some new characters, totally nuked the plotline, and it's barely recognizable now. One of the main characters kept his name, another kept her backstory (the MC), and two secondary characters kept their basis in place. There are one or two scenes that stuck around, but for the most part, it's completely different and is now what it was originally trying to be. I just had to grow up before I could understand that the trauma I was trying to give the MC was PTSD, what a reasonable way for her to stop living on the streets was, and to figure out what ages these characters needed to be (they started off 12, now they're 17/18). They also all got personality transplants, so the one who started as "sports guy" is now "lovable nerd with unusual hobbies who loves trying to solve mysteries, rambles a lot, and gets very excited by the things he likes," etc.

After two and a half days of intense re-outlining, I started writing with the goal to finish by my mom's birthday in mid-April. I'm close to 80,000 words in now, hoping my outline makes it to 100,000, and ultimately plan to try to get it traditionally published (after a ton of revision).

It took an absolute massacre of the original, but the premise is still what it was when I was 12: Homeless girl with the same backstory makes a friend and begins to rejoin society as she works through her past. Except this time, it makes sense and is realistic.

[xstarx07]

Not ten, but twelve and released that clusterfuck onto the internet by 15 (5 years ago). But I rewrote almost everything to be not as shallow and confusing as it used to be and I‘m kinda proud to see lightyears of improvement in it. Sure, the main character used to be a heavy self-insert, but she kinda evolved into something different the more I re-developed the story and started developing her own unique personality.
I still cringe heavily at the old version of the story, however, I came to appreciate and love that fact, that it did actually improve so much and I can‘t wait to get to certain plot points in this rebooted project! :3

[kaylynx]

That's very similar to the experience I had with something else I wrote! A shorty story I started as a teen, then revisited much later and expanded into a novel! And after self-publishing it, I decided I needed to rewrite the entire thing because so much time has passed and it feels cringey xD #writerproblems lol! Good luck to you! I'm hoping to go the traditional publishing route with mine as well! It's not easy, so I wish you the best!! <3

[Stargazer31]

I wrote a "story" when I was eight, about a group of Kung Fu animals (tiger, ocelot, lemur, wolf, fennec fox) saving the world from an evil businessman via magic powers. It was basically an environmentalist Kung Fu Panda.

[OffBased]

...I would read that

[Aleksei]

Oh, yeah I remember THAT story from like a life ago. I inspired on Slayers manga/anime, so most characters looked like them, and there was no plot xD. I did a re-do of some characters for practice a couple of months ago, and looked at the before and now, and yikes! The difference!

Here I leave the evidence. There are like, 20 years of distance between one and another... and less practice that I wish I had done u_u

[OffBased]

I have so many of those cringy stories back when I was writing novels XD

Here’s a snippet from a Pokémon fanfic I did with some immaculate dialogue:

I asked him if he understands what the results of the Great Pokemon War were, but he was staring out the window at the sunset. “Look at this,” he said. Sighing, I made my way over to it. It was beautiful, I will admit. The amber light cascaded at the other side of the island, the sea dappled with radiant dots. “Don’t you wish everything could be as alluring as this?” Calaver asked.

“There’s no time to embrace such beauty when you have so much work to do.” I said.

“Come on, Penn. I hope when you’re a full Gardevoir, you won’t be so stubborn. Work can wait sometimes.”

“No, it can’t! We only progress when we work to it! And even when it is achieved, we still can’t stop! Only fools will sit back and watch as the innovators make their craft.”

My current comic was originally a novel, but I deleted every version I had of it. I’m still kicking myself for that since they would’ve been gold mines to read now

[pilot-obvious]

I made a Star Trek parody called Space Academy that focused on a group of four young students who came from different planets. It was mostly just a bunch of random, cringy shenanigans. I would love to revisit it some day because I feel like 25 year old me could do it more justice than elementary pre-teen Pilot.

[Caro]

I user to write smutty mystery novels and pass them around to my classmates when there was a new chapter and they’d leave cute little notes in the folder of this one pink flowery notebook I wrote them in.

God, i dont think I could bring myself to read it now if I had it.... unfortunately its now in the possession of my mother which is mortifying to think about.

[AmysGames]

Funnily enough, a lot of the comics I'm working on now are based on stuff I wrote when I was much younger. So it can be pretty funny seeing just how different my characters were back then, haha. For example, this weirdly cheerful Sanori (and some INCREDIBLY bad Japanese):

[thedude3445]

All of the comics and stories I made when I was in elementary school are amazing and I love them.

[thecrystalrook]

oh man now THESE are some fire classics. The Donkey Kong ones especially

[oliveoly]

Yesss. My story Rise Of Tria... been working on it for more than 10 years!
It was very different at first, I was really into pirates. I remember writing it the day after I saw the first potc movie.
It used to be about a princess named Delphine whose older sister died in mysterious circumstances, and she is forced into an arranged marriage, so she runs away with a robber, her maid (the robber's sister), a serial killer and a fruit seller.

There was no plot after that, they just sailed at random from weird place to weird place.

(Actually, the pilot was way better as it was a slice of life series taking place on a haunted pirate island and centered on the fruit seller just trying to sell his fruits)

I really hated Delphine after a while so I decided to center the story on the robber and his little sister instead, then changed the pirates setting to witch hunters and actually wrote a plot. After 10 years the first 2 chapters are on tapas!!

[sc101]

I wrote about this really hot girl protagonist who was elegant, gender non conforming and badass when I was 8- 11 I think and then was surprised by learning I was not straight at 16.

She has been very much chipped down to become the character 'Mei' in my comic 'Rotten Apples'.

Rotten Apples | Tapas

[FafasMcMelt]

you mean my naruto fanfic? that shit was diamond from the get go!