Sci-Fi, fantasy and speculative Indie Authors Review discussion
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Being hasty is almost never a good idea in writing, IMO. Those are interesting comments. Can you explain what you mean by "plot density"? Or it that something that one has to read to understand? It sounds like maybe your story introduces too much and maybe goes in too many directions without developing any of them enough to be satisfying? I can't say since I haven't read your work, but it sounds like maybe the narrative thread is not strong enough (or clear enough) to hold these reader's interest?
I can see where a short story that doesn't have a lot of dialog could be an issue for readers. It can start to sound like a report, not a story -- there might be a flavor of that in those comments.
Wow. That is definitely a lot to cover in ten thousand words. World building is great, but story building is different. Just make sure that your story and characters are not getting lost in the world building. If you make the world the story, you are writing history. We only need to know what is relevant to the characters we care about. If you don't get us to care about a character, we won't really care what world they live in either.
Rob wrote: "@Owen, it has a high plot density in that it is a 10k word story with 5 main characters each with their own story, it covers 4 planets and a sea moon, the fall of a civilisation, slavery and social..."I downloaded the sample PDF and just read it. I think I see what they are getting at. I can send you a private message here with my impressions, if you like.
One comment (echoing Nathan): world building is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Most readers will react to characters they can relate to. Lacking engaging characters in a story, it's pretty much just one big infodump. Some people may really like that, but many won't.
I get these comments a lot. In fact, the three novellas I'm in the process of releasing right now were written in response to an editor telling me a story felt like part of a longer work.But it sounds like...honestly?
Write the longer work. Give yourself the space. Expand it. If you KEEP being told something feels like part of a longer work, by multiple people?
It probably is.
Rob wrote: " I might start off doubling my word count on my third story with some more 'meat' (ambiance, dialog, less fast-forward, etc) to 20k or 25k words and see how its reviews turn out..."I think that may be your problem. It sounds like you're trying to fit the story to the word count, rather than the word count to the story.
Form must follow function.
Well...You can, of course, set constraints on a story and challenge yourself to write to a specific word count, but to succeed in that you have to understand that the story will have to be tooled to the length you're after. You simply can't cram a 50,000 word idea into 5,000 words. You have to adjust what you put in the story in order to fit the format.
Short stories really have their own rhythm and scope. Backstory, complex plots, deep character development, world building...you might get away with one of those in a story, but no more than that.
OR you could--as I've found myself more adept at doing--just write the story as it wants to be written. Let the story set it's own length. In traditional publishing that's not really possible, but with self-publishing and especially eBooks, any length goes, so why limit yourself?
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If that is the case, the obvious answer is to hold off and publish the entire novel, but that is not the impression I am getting. I suspect that each story is trying to convey too much in a small package. Why not go back and flesh out each story into a full length novel rather than trying to start this with the third?
Rob wrote: "@Owen, that would be very welcome. Tnx for offering."I'll send you a note shortly (within the next couple of hours).
"we are very much wrong wrong about (parts of our) our own history". IMO, That's too general a theme to connect anything especially when it can be shown that human beings have the self interest conflict running at all levels in all their interactions with reality.
I think if you changed the wording without changing the point of what you are trying to get across of the common theme it would have more impact.A (historical) event is like a point at the center of a sphere. The volume of the sphere is the complete account of the event. You never get the whole picture. At best you get a slice of the sphere.
It sounds like you can't directly connect the stories to each other. Even a small intersection might keep the reader going. Like the way James Burke laid out his Connections stories. Hundreds of characters, thousands of disconnected events, all nicely tied together. Yeah I know, the numbers are way off, but he certainly did a good job of relating seemingly unrelated facts and people over a good stretch of time. That way you could get your point across your way.
This is starting to sound like religious propaganda to me, from the descriptions. That might certainly account for some of the negative responses, if so.
This could definitely be considered propaganda, "story about how the 1969 Apollo 11 crew never actually made it back from the moon".
Pamphlets, to save us from heathen beliefs.
Apollo 11 crew not making it back from the Moon because they ran into a "robotic wolf."...I fail to see any propaganda in that message.
Now, in the story there would have to be propaganda to hide the fact that the crew never made it back.
I think some commentors may be reading a bit too much into this with too little information to go on. ;D
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As for your answer to my questions, Rob, I understand your cost concerns and that makes sense. But... Don't discount the idea of fleshing out the story if you think you have more that you can tell. You may be selling yourself short.
I know it's called alternative history and you can make anything happen that you want. Should of said could construed as.Just publishing something on the web gives it a certain amount of legitimacy to some people. Before you snicker, there are plenty of people who believe if something is in their work computer it must true.
Apollo 11 is certainly one of the missions most likely not to be believed. A story like that only needs buzzwords to get on any respectable conspiracy site that pays little attention to anything that actually happened. I am sure it would have more believers than ants becoming men. Funny thing is I believe people originally evolved from worms with backbones 500 million years ago and judging by the number of gods that are the only god on this planet (forget about the galaxy) it is still pagan times.
To a lot of people any kind of robot is a robot. I read the comments to news articles to see how far off the public record is drifting. The other day some one was railing about how the US had developed missiles and rocket engines to bomb England during the war. I doubt it was a typo.
Here's a situation I'm in, if I write a story about a doomed planet where food won't grow naturally anymore and is saved by gmo food and I don't personally believe in gmo food, is that propaganda? Or just plain old fiction because I made it up.
Obliviously I read too much into everything but every once in a while it makes unfortunate sense.
Rob wrote: "@Robert, interesting, so if any of our alternative history stories ends up in one-star-only land, we can just relabel it non-fiction and become an overnight best seller amongst conspiracy theorists?"Hmm...time to change my writing direction.
No, not any old one, just the ones that "regular" people believe in. I know perfectly normal people who saw the live tv of the space missions and now have doubts about it. They only doubt "normal" things like controlling the weather and vaccines. I have no idea how well the conspiracy market pays, probably not so much.
Rob wrote: "they went to the moon only to be ripped to pieces by a 5000 year old giant tied up wolf robot ;-)..."
You mean that ISN'T true?
You mean that ISN'T true?
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I volunteer to believe this. :)
Well, that makes two of us. Can we start a trend? I'd like to get in on the ground floor of at least one conspiracy theory.
The reality is that with seven billion people and a functioning virtual world we already have alternative realities as being acceptable ways of viewing the world.Personally I would like to see more stories that use story and plot development in place of commercialized character development.
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Do I hear three? Four? Come on folks! Be part of history! Free tinfoil hats to the first 100 subscribers to the lone robot wolf theory!
I don't use tinfoil hats. Any more. For one thing, they have to be precisely tuned. If they're off even slightly, you run the risk of becoming sane. Having said that, shouldn't this discussion be transferred to the "Just Lurking" thread, where life is beautiful all the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fn36...
I'll third that. I have a grandmother who doesn't believe the moon landing happened and my mother doesn't believe dinosaurs were real. I'm up for a good conspiracy. :)
LOL, what a bunch of stoopid noobs. The lone robot wolf theory's been all over youtube for ages. Look it up: The Dusty Knoll. Do your own freaking research, people!];P
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I'm in on the lone robot wolf theory, but then I will go along with anything that my Reverend Christina ordains.
Christina wrote: "Doesn't believe or doesn't want to believe that dinosaurs were real? Ornithoscelidaphobia should not be marginalized, folks."She doesn't believe, despite many years of trying to convince her. She believes all those skeletons put together in museums is just people making things fit where they shouldn't.
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I believe everyone should be killed. No punchline here. *nod*
I believe that most right thinking people in this country today are sick and tired of being told they're sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I for one am sick and tired of hearing it.
...we may have strayed from the Op. Hmm.
Just another case of tangential reasoning, or maybe it was seasoning.
*brings popcorn* this derailment has been entertaining...
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Back to the original post, though--
SQUIRREL!
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I'm afraid I'm on the 'Christina's a good mod' team, even if I am contradicting you, C. It's all creative's innit. Catherding skills.
Yeah, I quit one group because the new mod wouldn't let the conversation go anywhere. I think she missed the whole point of social interaction.
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;p
Hmmm, what nobody realizes is that the Council of Light and Dark saw fit to give you a nice feel-good history to cover up the fact it was destroying the Shadowed in an attempt to take over your schools in order to give the right wing something to not be afraid of.To be honest though, alternate history is okay as long as you have the connectors between sections. It sounds like the seven could be part of a series of novels as long as you get that base connector in place.
For now I'll go back to pounding plowshares into swords so the last of the Shadowed brethren and sistren stand a chance against the parasitic-mold Representatives and protein-deficient Senators in the plutocratic assembly...
You don't want to tease people with novel length plots and not be able to put enough meat on the bones to satisfy readers. If they are frustrated, they probably have a valid point.