Ever longer

Each of my novellas has been longer than the last. This one tipped over 40,000 words, and I could feel the difference. Not in a good way; I was lost and confused. But I struggled on, and I think I narrowed down my Longer Length Demons to conquer as I continue down this path toward novels:

Subplots. In a tight story of short length, you focus on the main conflict (or rather, the main struggle — see Patricia C. Wrede's notes on obstacles). When you have more room to roam, it may be better to find other interesting things that are happening, because not all books can keep up a highwire-level of tension while addressing a single issue. However, I kept eyeing my subplots and wondering whether they truly were necessary. After all, the main storyline could stagger on without them. The thing is, subplots might not be critical, but they can still be helpful — give you room to develop relationships more gradually, establish situations that will come to a head in your final climax — and the point is to build the best story possible, not the leanest story possible.


Chapter breaks. This one's because I write out of order and then (as my brother puts it) spackle over the gaps between scenes. I focus so hard on keeping a continuous flow between my snippets that the next thing I know, I have one long chapter stretching from the beginning to the end. This is valid for some literary works, but I'd rather find some natural breathing points and not make the story a single breathless rush. I note this as a difficulty because there are more gaps in a long story (so it's hard to notice which ones would actually be left intact as a chapter break), and because you have to have more damn chapters.


Travel and time flow. Since I'm not trying to write A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (in oh-so-many ways, I am not), and not even Many Sequential Days in the Life of a Fictional Character, there are often periods when nothing special happens — you know, your character's traveling across the continent and you don't really want to detail every moment — and you're basically saying, "Time passes." You have your handy three centered asterisks, and you've got blithe statements like, "Time passes." These probably shouldn't be abrupt or distracting or come in too frequent intervals. However, the more expansive my storyline, the more likely I'll have these little hand-wavey stretches of time, especially as there are likely to be more locations and thus more transitions.


Build-up and resolution. Because you're spending more time on this story, it needs to deliver in proportion. All those loose ends you've got dangling, more than usual because — that's right — this is a longer story? Yup, they all need to be tied up. Did your couple dream of each other for four hundred pages? They can't be brought together as summarily as they might in a short story. Similarly, if you're planning to reveal a twist at the end, you have a lot more covering up to do throughout all the rest of the story. Fun times.

I'll note that as I typed this list up, I kept thinking of published novels that were exceptions to the guidelines I so desperately tried to follow, and rather successfully. But that's how good writers roll. "Rules?" they scoff. "Psht."

I look forward to my novel-writing "Psht" days.

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