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mary_j_59This is just because we finally got some snow! It was very pretty while it lasted, and a child in my building made an extremely festive snowman with a walking stick and a punk hairdo. Pic below!
Anyway - have you ever wondered how and why some modern novels are so darn long? I think I understand now. All these writers who come up with enormous tomes are following the method I seem to have stumbled upon - the snowball method.
I've tended to see writing as an act of discovery. You find out what your story is by writing it down. That certainly keeps things interesting, but - after you finish a chapter, you may find that you have to write two more to answer the questions that chapter raised. Characters may also open their mouths and start talking, and then you have to find out exactly who they are and what they have to say. So the novel grows, sometimes in unexpected directions. That is what has happened to me! I had thought that I would have quite a short first draft - not much over 40 thousand words - and that I would finish the draft by August. Now it seems likely that my draft will be over 60 thousand words, and I hope to finish it by the end of January, with luck (as well as some discipline).
I've been using parts of Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method and finding them quite helpful. The idea is that all novels need structure, but the structure should grow organically, like a snowflake. I like that analogy. But what if the novel NEVER STOPS GROWING!
Well - I don't mean that entirely seriously! Even if Honor ends up twice as long as I initially thought it would be (and it won't), if still won't be long for a standalone teen sf novel. But I think new writers like me do sometimes have to ask: how long is too long? and how long is long enough?
This is on my mind partly because I just reread Elizabeth Wein's The Winter Prince. And - oh my gosh! I remember that book as being very intense. It is. You end up going deep into the main character's experience, and seeing his young half-brother through his eyes. It's all about jealousy, hate, and love between brothers. Also about other tensions within a family, and what it takes to be a ruler, and several other things besides. You can't rush through this book, but it's well worth reading slowly. Wein clearly took pains with the imagination and language and research that went into this book. And - it's barely 200 pages long. She succeeds in giving her readers a character analysis of some depth and also - in the end - a gripping adventure, in that brief word count. It is a disturbing book, but really well written.
The same is true of Sally Prue's Cold Tom. I can't do better than to point you at a teen's review of this one - it's also a complete experience, extremely well thought out, with a fascinating and horrifying alien society. It's also less than 200 pages long. You can find Dave's review at our teenspace: http://myspace.com/northcastlelibrary. Go to the blog and check out the entry for May 28, 2007 - David's fifth review.
And - I know I still have to review Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. That is a long story, taking six volumes to tell, but each book isn't much over 300 pages in length. And you don't ever have the sense that Paver is wasting words. She's tremendously good at externalizing her characters' conflicts through physical action. That's not as easy to do as it sounds - but more later! This essay is growing like a snowball, too. )
I think what I'm trying to say, in the end, is that all readers (and writers) want a story or novel to be a complete experience, with its own validity. But we don't necessarily want or need enormous length. Not that length is always a bad thing! Some stories need room, while others benefit from a tighter focus. Paver and Tolkien wrote long stories, and I wouldn't wish them one word shorter. Boston, Prue and Wein, among others, are marvels of concision, and the experience of reading their books (for this reader, anyway) is so intense that I wouldn't want their books to be one word longer. They are completely satisfying as they are.
So - how, as a writer, do you tell when you have actually finished your story? Based on my brief experience, it certainly helps if you know where you are going - then you have some hope of recognizing when you get there! I think you may also have to give the story a rest, stand back, and see if it has a definite shape (like a snowman, or Mr. Ingermanson's snowflake), or is rather shapeless, like a snowball. Good beta readers can certainly help with this!
So that's what I've been thinking about as I struggle with the latter part of my novel.
Anyway - have you ever wondered how and why some modern novels are so darn long? I think I understand now. All these writers who come up with enormous tomes are following the method I seem to have stumbled upon - the snowball method.
I've tended to see writing as an act of discovery. You find out what your story is by writing it down. That certainly keeps things interesting, but - after you finish a chapter, you may find that you have to write two more to answer the questions that chapter raised. Characters may also open their mouths and start talking, and then you have to find out exactly who they are and what they have to say. So the novel grows, sometimes in unexpected directions. That is what has happened to me! I had thought that I would have quite a short first draft - not much over 40 thousand words - and that I would finish the draft by August. Now it seems likely that my draft will be over 60 thousand words, and I hope to finish it by the end of January, with luck (as well as some discipline).
I've been using parts of Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method and finding them quite helpful. The idea is that all novels need structure, but the structure should grow organically, like a snowflake. I like that analogy. But what if the novel NEVER STOPS GROWING!
Well - I don't mean that entirely seriously! Even if Honor ends up twice as long as I initially thought it would be (and it won't), if still won't be long for a standalone teen sf novel. But I think new writers like me do sometimes have to ask: how long is too long? and how long is long enough?
This is on my mind partly because I just reread Elizabeth Wein's The Winter Prince. And - oh my gosh! I remember that book as being very intense. It is. You end up going deep into the main character's experience, and seeing his young half-brother through his eyes. It's all about jealousy, hate, and love between brothers. Also about other tensions within a family, and what it takes to be a ruler, and several other things besides. You can't rush through this book, but it's well worth reading slowly. Wein clearly took pains with the imagination and language and research that went into this book. And - it's barely 200 pages long. She succeeds in giving her readers a character analysis of some depth and also - in the end - a gripping adventure, in that brief word count. It is a disturbing book, but really well written.
The same is true of Sally Prue's Cold Tom. I can't do better than to point you at a teen's review of this one - it's also a complete experience, extremely well thought out, with a fascinating and horrifying alien society. It's also less than 200 pages long. You can find Dave's review at our teenspace: http://myspace.com/northcastlelibrary. Go to the blog and check out the entry for May 28, 2007 - David's fifth review.
And - I know I still have to review Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness. That is a long story, taking six volumes to tell, but each book isn't much over 300 pages in length. And you don't ever have the sense that Paver is wasting words. She's tremendously good at externalizing her characters' conflicts through physical action. That's not as easy to do as it sounds - but more later! This essay is growing like a snowball, too. )
I think what I'm trying to say, in the end, is that all readers (and writers) want a story or novel to be a complete experience, with its own validity. But we don't necessarily want or need enormous length. Not that length is always a bad thing! Some stories need room, while others benefit from a tighter focus. Paver and Tolkien wrote long stories, and I wouldn't wish them one word shorter. Boston, Prue and Wein, among others, are marvels of concision, and the experience of reading their books (for this reader, anyway) is so intense that I wouldn't want their books to be one word longer. They are completely satisfying as they are.
So - how, as a writer, do you tell when you have actually finished your story? Based on my brief experience, it certainly helps if you know where you are going - then you have some hope of recognizing when you get there! I think you may also have to give the story a rest, stand back, and see if it has a definite shape (like a snowman, or Mr. Ingermanson's snowflake), or is rather shapeless, like a snowball. Good beta readers can certainly help with this!
So that's what I've been thinking about as I struggle with the latter part of my novel.