McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
How do you think/plot on a novel's scale?
The Deposed King:
"Obsessed fan and celebrity stalker summons the ghost of the celebrity he is obsessed with, so he can be with her. It does not end well."
Why can't this idea be made into a full length novel? I mean this guy summons a ghost. Is he a wizard, a medium or an ectomancer? and if so, why can't him and the celebrity ghost get sucked into a Dresden style PI story. He wants her, she doesn't want him, he can only have her around as long as he can pay the bills. She finds Ectomantic Investigations to be incredibly interesting, if only the ectomancer wasn't around. And as time goes on some kind of Ghost Hound or Hell Hound or something that they run across trying to pay the bills suddenly gets a hankering to snack on celebrity ghost. End of book things don't turn out well on many levels for our obsessive ectomantic fan.
Anyway so long as your MC doesn't exist in a vacum there are going to be things he needs to do in the 'real world' that open the door for fun adventures.
Of if this isn't the story you want to write, mix and match the details.
The Deposed King
Griffyn612:
--- Quote from: Rechan on May 19, 2014, 03:33:57 AM ---A hitman is sent to kill someone, only to discover too late his target is really a vampire and he was sent as the vampire's surprise birthday present.
--- End quote ---
This sounds like the first couple chapters of a novel. It's just a matter of wanting to do something different with it.
--- Quote ---Chandler Reynolds is a hitman for hire. He's worked for
governments, corporations, and private citizens. He's
even worked pro bono when the need arises. So he's
used to making enemies, and surviving retaliations.
But now he needs to figure out which of his past clients
tried to kill him.
When someone from his past hires him for a job, he
doesn't hesitate. But when that job turns out to be
a setup, and he's meant to be a party favor for a
vampire coven's Deathday celebration, Reynolds barely
gets out alive. He wants answers, but the client has
disappeared, and so has any trace of their existence.
Now Reynolds is in a race against time, as someone
works behind the scenes to erase him -- permanently.
--- End quote ---
Rechan:
--- Quote from: The Deposed King on May 19, 2014, 10:23:53 AM ---"Obsessed fan and celebrity stalker summons the ghost of the celebrity he is obsessed with, so he can be with her. It does not end well."
Why can't this idea be made into a full length novel?
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Griffyn612 on May 19, 2014, 03:37:56 PM ---This sounds like the first couple chapters of a novel. It's just a matter of wanting to do something different with it.
--- End quote ---
Hm. That's interesting.
I think I see where I'm limiting my thinking. The characters in these stories are created for the purpose of dieing. They are unsympathetic bad people doing bad things for their own reasons and it gets them killed with a twist.
A book where these stories are the end would be unsatisfying. However, you are suggesting these are the beginning. If these characters were sympathetic and the focus was on complication, then there's more room to work.
There are other plotting problems I have, but this at least helps me jiu-jitsu a short idea into a longer one. Thanks.
LizW65:
I agree with those who think you have at least the seeds of some full-length novels in the ideas you shared up-thread; any of them could be either the opening chapters or the climax of the story. Apart from that, I probably can't help you much, as I have exactly the opposite issue: I'll get an idea and think, "Oh, that could make a nice short story!" Then I think about it a little more and realize that there's no way I can possibly do justice to it in under 100,000 words.
Paynesgrey:
For me, scope is determined by the scope of the core concept of that particular story. "Shaifennen and her sister encounter a local apex-predator and try not to get eaten," worked out as a long-running short, 7.7K or so. I suppose it could be filled out to make a short novel... but 7.7 worked out just fine to tell that story, with a few hundred words worth of elements which are intended to dovetail with other stories.
Now, "Shaifennen finds a dig that will change the economic balance of power in her region and maybe even help her people reclaim their place in the stars" is gonna be three books at least.
The initial find and immediate consequences are book one. The less obvious consequences, reactions of other communities as they have the time to process what her find means to them socially and economically build the second book. The endgame, the final conflicts and alliances which decide who will decide what direction the emerging civilization on her colony will take makes for the third.
Point being, I find it best to have had an idea where the story would ultimately go and allowed that to determine the length. If a story had the possibility to be part of a more complex arc, I adjusted accordingly (as with the trilogy, which originally was going to be just one book.) Flip side, I've had shorts grow to novellas, novels shrink to novellas and shorts because the core story was being overwhelmed by filler. They dovetail with the rest of the stories but aren't dependent... but they really just didn't need to be longer to get where I wanted the story to end up.
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