As
I post this, the first draft of Swordsmaster
has surpassed the length of my longest story so far (“Mutiny on the Star-Bound”,
at 11,425); it is now in novelette territory, and officially well on its way to
being a novel, so I thought I’d reflect on the differences I’m encountering
between writing short and long.
Back
when I decided to have my creative renewal – my Midlife Renaissance ™, I made
two decisions. Firstly, I chose writing speculative (sci-fi, fantasy &
horror) fiction because it was what I liked to read, and it allowed the
greatest flexibility for me to “make things up”, as well as the maximum
leveraging of my “over-active imagination.”
Secondly,
I decided to keep it to short fiction rather than trying to tackle a novel
right off the bat. I thought it would be much easier to keep my focus and my
voice with a shorter amount of words, and I was right. But short fiction has a
couple of restrictions that I may never get the hang of: in short fiction you
must hook the reader quickly (in the first 13 lines), and you must be sparing
with your words. There isn’t a lot of room for fluff, but since I don’t
consider “words” to be one of my writing strengths, short fiction mode has suited
me well. Also, since I knew my writing time would be sporadic, I needed to
write short form so I wouldn’t have too much to re-familiarize myself with (my
memory being faulty already, and not getting any better.)
My
own creative method (start with an idea or a phrase and just write until I’m
done and see where it’s taken me) works with short fiction. There isn’t a lot
of distance to cover, so it’s harder to get lost out there in the words, and
even if I deviate a little from the direction I thought I was going, I still
wind up in a place that ties together and makes sense. It may not be the
conclusion I had planned, but it still has a logic to it; the ending works.
Now,
the first time I ever thought I was going to write a novel (Swordsmaster, but over 35 years ago), I
had the same creative method of “stream of consciousness” writing, and the
story twisted and turned in all sorts of nonsensical and annoying directions. I
needed to be able to control it, and didn’t know how, so I had to kill it,
otherwise it would have rambled and ramPAGEd all over the place, and although
it might have been emotionally fulfilling to me to complete it, it would have
been of no value to anyone else.
Even
then I knew that my writing was worthless without having meaning or value to
another person . In acting, you can go over the top with your emotions and let
what feels good to you overpower and kill the story you are performing.
Improvisation can occasionally produce genius bits, but rarely a memorable
story.
You
have to rein it in and plan what you’re doing in order to have the best shot at
success in long form. So when I decided as one of my goals for this year that I
would tackle a novel, I was wary of not having my course laid out. I don’t do
outlines for my short fiction, but I laid one out for Swordsmaster. And yet, even though I am confident that I will get
to the ending I have envisioned, I know the outline wasn’t detailed enough to
keep total control of the story. Twists have already developed in my path that
were unexpected, yet serve to move the story toward the finish line. Characters
are already interjecting themselves and interacting in ways that liven things
up, and make me wonder once again who’s really in charge here. I know it will
be a wild ride before it’s over, and I will see and write things I hadn’t
expected, but that’s the fun part.
After
six weeks of writing this story, it is obvious that the hardest aspect to keep
control of will be consistency. My poor memory is already being a drag on the
process – note taking has become imperative. Terms that I would have tossed in
on a whim in short fiction without bothering to keep track of now have to be
listed in a glossary so I don’t have search through thousands of words just
because I can’t remember how something was said.
Or
what someone’s name was. Or what a place looked like.
In
short fiction, I had a limited number of characters to keep track of, and if I
created a location, I would most likely only use it once or twice, and would
still remember the details of either in the month it might take to complete a
story.
I
need reminders about everything now. And there are so many places and people
who need names. In all my writing up to now, I have used a letter repeated four
times (“AAAA”,”BBBB”) as a placeholder for a name I hadn’t decided on. I’ve
already run out of letters and need to develop another method to deal with it.
I
know I will be doing more drafts than I am accustomed to. I can already see
that my first draft will be to just get the plot done. The next pass will be
for details - short fiction allowed me to use less description in creating a
story. This year I will struggle to get long-winded (don’t mock me – I am very
short in my short fiction); in long fiction I have to get better at details.
There will undoubtedly be huge purges of material that serves no purpose,
rewrites of parts that weren’t quite what they needed to be, and consistency
checks throughout. That’s a lot of drafts.
I
have about 12% of the words I estimated I’d need on the page now, and many of
those words will be overwritten before this is done. I thought I might be able
to complete it this year? There are people who have told me I’m crazy, but it
wasn’t even about this.
Just
saying…
<<<>>>
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Use coupon
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<<<>>>
William Mangieri’s writing (including his
latest ePublication: “#InWhoseReality?”) can be found in many places, such as:
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