OK, day after Halloween, but it’s still closer to it than it’s been before. Talk among yourselves, ask questions for me to blather on about next week, whatever you like.
I’m back from the current round of New Book Publicity and head down in trying to get Dark Lady closer to done. Oh, and I have cats again! My previous cat, Karma, died of stomach cancer in June, and I was waiting until the book travel was over to adopt a new one. I ended up with two not-quite-identical gray toms from the same shelter–Dorian, age 7-1/2, and Meriadoc, aka Merry, age 3. Dorian is solid gray and very shy, and still mostly hides under the bed or the vanity or whatever he fits under, unless he wants food or petting. Merry has about 1/2 inch of white fur at the very tip of his tail, but he is otherwise solid gray. He was cautious at first, but is now exploring the house, and commenting constantly on whatever he finds (mostly unfavorably, because he’s not finding second breakfast or elevenses or brunch or lunch or…).
Welcome to Dorian and Merry!
Indeed! If you get a chance, I would like a blog post with pictures of them! 🙂
Does the gray Dorian have a portrait? (Couldn’t resist. Or rather, didn’t try.)
A topic request from me please. I had an idea for an urban fantasy novel, tried to write it, and found that what was supposed to be the first few chapters is now a 50k word novella.* I’m halfway through revising the novella and then I will probably go on to write the rest of the novel and figure out later if the novella is a prequel, book1, or part 1 of a very long novel.
Given my experience so far, now I’m wondering if my novel might actually be series-length. Is there a good way to tell before you write it? Do you have any advice for what to do if your work turns out wildly longer than expected? I’m very inexperienced- I’ve written the novella, and 50k words of an abandoned sci-fi novel, and that’s it. Since I’m still a long way from publishing anything, should I just keep going with the urban fantasy novel as writing practice and not worry that it might turn into a 400k word monstrosity with no good place to break it into separate books?
*A now complete novella, at least in first draft. Thanks to everyone who gave me advice last time I posted, but it turns out I was just taking longer to recover from stress than I thought, and I got back into the habit of writing and finished the thing.
I’d say to just go ahead and write the thing, because having something written is better than having it floating around in your brain, but I’m about equally inexperienced, so who am I to speak to this question?
My first novel, A Diabolical Bargain, snuck up on me by pretending to be a novelette.
I advise writing it to the length it turns out.
Thanks to Mary and E Beck. I’m looking forward to seeing what our gracious hostess says, if she takes up the topic suggestion, but I’m also leaning toward just writing it.
I feel like there’s always a way to break it into separate books if necessary. So don’t worry too much on that.
My topic request is on ways to depict events spread over several months.
I’ve got something that’s either a young-adult novel or a not-young-adult novel that happens to have 13 year old protagonists (after the manner of Terry Pratchet: “Similarly Moby Dick is popular among whales.”)
Anyway, the story takes place over the course of a school year, and I’m discovering problems I hadn’t realized I had. My previous novels tended to be more compressed in time, occurring over the course of one or two weeks. Even for them it might have helped to expand the timeline, but I wasn’t sure how to handle that.
Now I’m looking at something were I have to expand the timeline, and I’m still not sure how to handle it.
For what it’s worth, the conceit is that the two 13 year old protagonists meet for the first time and learn that they’re twins (sister and brother). They’re attending one last year of middle school together, before going on to separate high schools (due to the setting being an alternate history). Now it’s likely to end up as the digital equivalent of bottom-desk-drawer work, but I want to write it anyway.
Speeding up a novel planning process re: structure, etc. The fact that I spent three years snippeting a novel before it hit critical mass sufficient to identify a single external plot goal two major stories could coalesce around and then I started attempting full scenes in earnest a year ago, and NOW have enough written to know the basic sequence of the external plot, which I wrote up for nano legit bothers me.
I don’t want to take five years for every book, but I have a ton of stories just like that, either in the critical mass or just before phase but haven’t hit a clear this goes in, this stays out level of clarity. Since outlining and traditional plotting never produces something I want to write, I’m kinda at a loss of how to speed up what does work, which seems to be imagining through pretty much every character’s “protag of their own story” incl. a billion segues until I know how the whole fits together. Then I carve off the slices that make a single book.
That’s just a lot and takes a long time, but I haven’t found a lot of tips for shortening things that doesn’t seem to assume a bit of an architect type writer rather than the gardener / explorer type I am. I am not a person who decides what my characters will do. I decide what to do to them, then they react as they will.
It might be helpful to add I am a backwards plotting. I pick a climactic scene generally, then figure what’s necessary to make it pay off, then slowly build out all the scaffolding that makes that setup interesting and comprehensible. On short stuff I don’t plot at all, just focus on the story / character, but obv. novels do need a bit more of a skeleton.
After further reading on the topic, I’m going to add that no one seems to say anything helpful because they seem to equate planning to plotting. I know / plan my characters from grandparents to grandkids in a shockingly short amount of time (aka, I plan more than anyone I know) but outlining is a basically never and external plot is the part I know beginning, end, and anything that’s deeply relevant to the character story and nothing else when I start. I can’t just impose a plot that works (attempts have been made), but shortening the process of extracting one from characters would be grand.
So did I pick an obviously massive payoff to work toward for this book, with a lot of obvious plot setup to help me? yes. Final world-saving battle, which just happens to coincide with life altering character resolution moments for 3 of the mains I needed to turn that into a payoff. The 4th main is the protag. I did need him, but he had to grow a bit of a story ’cause he carried the external plot side.
And yet, it took 3 years of snippeting in the background of short story writing to pick out that battle and identify the four mains, then another year of actually writing to be able to line up my major events in a sequence (with one unplaced floater, but whatever), and so I guess the real question that I’m finally putting my brain on is how does one plot efficiently without outlining (I write out of order, and outlining genuinely remains useless to me)? Esp. if you’ve got a chunk of worldbuilding and multiple mains? or do I just resign myself to keeping multiple books in progress so there’s always something longer coming up on might be fully writable?
Planning and plotting are not the same thing–though my definitions might be different than yours (shrug :). In my mind, planning is when I’ve got a book in mind, but don’t know precisely what I want to do with it yet because the idea needs to be fleshed out more. Plotting is when I start sequencing the events of the story. Totally different things; planning happens from the very start, but plotting doesn’t usually come in until I’ve got a solid hold on the beginning of the thing.
They aren’t the same at all. But most writing helps seem to only describe winging it or outlining or doing a mini outline if you’re between. But like I’m totally a planner. I know my characters and world thoroughly in advance. I just can’t plot well.
Even when I figure out structural moments, they’re all story based. I knew the character arcs and followed the cause/effect of emotional moments with ease. But these intersect with an external plot; they don’t make one. So planning story (which I do) doesn’t necessarily mean building a plot (which I kinda suck at since all writing resources except Wrede and Leguin so far, seem to limit their suggestions to outline in a 3 act structure; which I’ve well proven does nothing for me).
If it helps any…maybe ask yourself why you want to tell this story? What’s so compelling about it?
Answering that should give you a key to the central problem/conflict, from which you can generate plot.
For example, that hoary old idea of the commoner who has the royal vizier/wizard/exposition monkey come visit to reveal “You’re the heir to the throne now!” But what’s so compelling about it is that the hero is neurodivergent, and doesn’t act like all the fantasy heroes in previous, similar stories.
So, the key element here is neurodivergence. How can a plot be built around that? Maybe the ~antagonist~ forces/faction want someone “normal”? (I.e., intolerance.) If so, all sorts of variations on tolerance and intolerance lend themselves to the work. An intolerant ally who learns better. A tolerant opponent who lets their ambition for the throne betray their tolerance. And so on…
All the why is it compelling is essentially that I use fiction writing to process my own stuff, so I almost always know that right off. Also all the character arcs are entirely known before I start at all. The final “climax” or resolution is necessary before I start at all.
I have previously used that payoff scene to figure out what goes in and stays out on characters (series sprawl prevention being a prime issue for character driven worldbuilders like me), but I’ve been thinking since yesterday how to figure out necessary plot setup from a plot payoff, which at least wins in that I know how to sort causes / effects without outlining by grouping sections of related threads. I’m thinking maybe I can use this same method to try to develop a plot without having to wait for it to finish emerging.
I’m just gonna say sorry for so many comments and replies. Not only am I not all that concise in general, I tend to continue to noodle on a problem and reframe it and reframe it until ideas spark well after I toss it into the Q&A pile.
And plot being difficult for me (due to my inability to think linearly and absolute story-killing results when I try imposing plot rather than extracting it) has been a problem since I started writing, because it just absolutely fails to interest me. So now that I’m hitting the wall of having to actually learn how to plot, I’m apparently thinking about it nonstop.
Hey, open mic is open mic. Comment all you want!
I’m just sorry I can’t help. I’ve tried a couple of times with people who have a hard time with plotting, but to no avail.
It’s frustrating, because I found it difficult when I started out, but now I barely have to think about it. These things just about write themselves. But I haven’t been able to pass along any insights that work for others. Drat.
The Internet has failed me! I was doing some research on how many spiders humans kill every year for *perfectly normal* fantasy-writing purposes, and the Internet had no information on that topic–the AI that searches the results and summarizes them even said so! I suppose it’s time to look into how many babies spiders have every year and make some educated guesses… 🙂
On NaNo. A slow start today, but every word is one fewer to be made up later.
I’ve been a fan of yours since first stumbling over Kazul decades ago in the public library. Actually, the whole family are Enchanted Forest fans. I’ve even baked the quick after battle cake..I used a sheet cake pan instead of a shield. My fan-ness has moved on to chocolate pots (love love love the first two stories so much! You two ladies are rather brilliant together!), ?Mairelon, and The Far West. Those books are read at least once a year. Now, I’ve tripped over your Lyra books in e library form. Your reasons for how you edited them years hence was fascinating to read. Speaking of, The Seven Towers has not been easy to finish, for some reason! I keep it on my shelf and pull it out to try again every so often. It’s odd, I love the characters but…there’s just something that doesn’t pull me in. I love it because it was published the year after I graduated from HS. I, personally, like to write, but first and foremost, I’m one who devours words. Yours are particularly tasty!
My family are all Enchanted Forest fans too! I discovered the books at the library when I was about 8 and got my parents and younger sister hooked. They were high on the list of things my sister asked our dad to read to her over and over, to the point where I still hear parts of them in his voice when I read them myself.
Two comments on the Dark Lord’s Daughter:
1. I enjoyed it.
2. When Kayla keeps fidgeting with the dress that doesn’t fit right, then changes out of the dress after rescuing her brother, she fidgets with the dress one more time AFTER she took it off.
(I really did like the book. Just thought I’d point out the detail that apparently escaped all proofreaders and made it into the printed version.)
I did too! Forgot to say how much I liked it. Genuinely looking foward to the sequel!
I enjoyed it too. But I burst out laughing when I got to the bit (paraphrase, I don’t have the book here) where Kayla and her allies meet and talk through issues, and it’s abstracted in one sentence. –Take that, council scene!
I have a format suggestion for a book.
The chapter introduction is a verse or two from a ballad. The chapter is then the true version of events.
(I’ve been thinking of this based on comments by some of Mercedes Lackey’s characters about bards.)
I really like books where charters are headed “In which…”. Even better if the In Which is misleading.
If you can find it, check out Tanith Lee’s Cyrion, written back in the 70s. A man is trying to find the title character, needing his help, but all he gets is everyone he meets telling a story they’ve heard about Cyrion. Very mythic.
Then he meets the real person…
Ooh! That’s an entertaining idea!
Yay cats!
I am convinced cats were the original inspiration for hobbits….
Hmm… cat-hobbits? Hobbit-cats? Sounds like an interesting story idea. What would (cobbits? hobbats? I need better names, but it’s late…) even look like, anyway? They’d certainly be smaller than regular cats, but would they still wear waistcoats and walk about on two legs?
Instead of NaNoWriMo, I want to write a short story or three as a change of pace. Only when I make a move in that direction I run slam into the wall of my old bugaboo, Plot is Hard.
There are huge numbers of on-line resources for “story prompts” that are story start prompts, with nary a hint of ideas for story endings. And the attitude seems to be “Take one of these cool, hard to come by starting prompts, pile trouble onto your protagonist, and the end will fall magically, effortlessly, into your lap!”
NOT! NOT! Starting ideas are easy to come by compared to ending ideas, not hard, and piling on trouble will just dig both the protagonist and me deeper into a hole. Endings falling into your lap is a lie! A lie!
Want ending prompts! Want want want!
Bleah. The blog ate my snarky pseudo-html tags “whine” and “rant”
I wish I could help, but I seem to have a similar problem…
Have you ever tried generating ending prompts of your own? Sometimes I just do up a bunch of random prompts on a whim and stash them in a file for later review (for the kinds of things that inspire me). If there’s a particular kind of prompt you want, maybe you could take a day and just think of what kinds of endings sound inspiring to you?
I dunno if any of these will spark joy but I had a go at thinking up some ending prompts:
Our hero(ine) is the Chosen One and is whisked off by the mentor and party in order to have adventures. As they get closer and closer to the Great Fortress of Evil, our hero notices increasing discrepancies between what the mentor and friends are saying and what s/he actually experiences on the ground. The story ends when the hero realises that ‘we are the baddies’ and defects to the Powers of Not-Really-Evil. (See also Sword of Good by Eliezer Yudkowsky.)
One day a young dragon is caught in a storm and lands on a sailing ship to rest just like an exhausted bird. The captain is persuaded not to have a fight with a fire breathing dragon on board his flammable ship and the dragon hangs out on deck until the storm has passed. In the meantime it makes friends with a junior officer. The dragon isn’t sure it can make it back to shore so it stays aboard the ship until it reaches its home port in a dragon-free country. The captain wants to sell the dragon to a menagerie but the junior officer finds out and gets the dragon in front of a magistrate in time to have it declared as a person with rights. Dragon and officer swear eternal friendship and set forth to have new adventures together.
There is a standard magical coming of age story in which our protagonist discovers they have magic powers and is sent to a school or mentor to learn how to deal with them. Being a mage means that our protagonist is disbarred from something they wanted to do (pursue a specific non-magical career? Marry a non-magical person? Move to another country?) The ending is when they decide they care more about that thing than they do about their shiny new magic powers, so they get themselves stripped of those powers (give them up to another person?) and head off to do the thing which they are now very sure they want to do.
If none of those spark inspiration, maybe ask ChatGPT for ending prompts?