Starting over again, and again... and again

[Dabs]

A little over a year ago I started writing a novel, and in late July I finished it. I did some editing, and I realized that, while there was a lot of good material, there was also a lot of schlock and some confusing logic that really harmed the plot. So, I decided to let it sit for a while since I'd practically burnt myself out at that point, and I needed to come up with a whole bunch of ideas to fix everything.

During that time (basically early august until now) I've tried coming up with different approaches to the story, and I've even started writing about a few of them. I could probably make a huge list of all the things I changed to make the story more workable. The problem is, I wasn't really passionate about the changes. It's like, they made sense, but they changed the story into something I didn't want to write.

A few days ago I pulled out the original draft and said "I'm just going to go back to this and freshen it up so that it works." I mean, that original one was the story I really wanted to tell. Of course, there was still schlock, so I scrapped the first half of the book and then some (yeah, there was that much schlock lol). Okay, fine, not a problem. The part I really love is the middle to the end, anyway.

However, now that I'm starting in medias res there's a whole bunch of background explanation that I have to do. The story starts with two boys leaving home after their village was destroyed and journeying with a man they've only recently met to find a new place to live. Now I'm struggling with the logic of explaining the boys' long-standing relationship, their connection to their home, who the man they've recently met is and how he connects with the plot (at it's most basic, a revenge story).

So now, because of this, I'm worried that I'm going to have to make changes again, and thus turn the story into something I'm not really passionate about anymore. I want the logic to be as smooth as possible. I don't want to have characters sitting around and talking for the sake of exposition, y'know?

I guess what I want to ask is have you ever encountered this problem--starting a story 1,000 times--and how have you solved it?

[Bowie20049]

Not yet. I started my story years ago, and I've been planning it years before that. All I can say to you is...good luck

[graystripe79]

Well, you could have it so that the man use to live in the village the boys are from and that's one way to make him more related to the boys. Or maybe the man came through the village just before it was destoryed and was talking about some great place that he's headed too and after the boys home is destroyed, they decide to track him down and travel with him.
If either of those idea's spark your creative jucies, then go ahead and use them. I totally know where your coming from and am glad to help.