Probably not a short story

But I'm okay with that, really.

Awhile back, I wrote about how I was working on a short story which would be history for a group of related novels I'm writing. Back in that post I had joked to myself that I didn't want it to turn into another novel. Yet now with the planning I've been doing for this short story it feels like there is enough going on so that it won't fit into the short story format.

Backing up a little bit, going forward at the same time. Last year I wrote the first draft of a science fiction mystery novel which takes place a few hundred years into the future. My main character is on a mining station in deep space somewhere. While that novel is set only on the mining station, the characters involved are part of a human race which has spread out to the stars. The time in which the novel takes place humans have been living on different planets for generations. Based on the colonization patterns and life on the planets, there are distinct cultures between them. People travel between the planets, and the planets are organized in some sort of interplanetary government. I also have other novels in mind that take place in this set up.

When I was doing some of the initial planning for the draft I had mapped out a vague time line of how humans had made it from Earth to the stars. I wasn't doing anything to detailed early on, only enough to get me to what I needed for the draft. With this time line I had decided that humans had a base on a planet just outside of our solar system from which they had a nice launching point to start exploring the planets which end up populated for the novels. With still settling on names for everything at the time, I called this the "Alpha site" since it's the first step to the stars. (Then I called the first planet settled Beta, as the next place humans moved onto from there).

Now that the first draft of the mystery is finished I've been looking at more world building to flesh things out better in preparation for revision. In the mean time I'd also been thinking it would be fun to write a short story. Inspiration hit and I thought, wouldn't the founding of the Alpha site make a great short story. So this month and last I've been writing down various scene and world ideas, figuring out the events which lead to the Alpha site being set up. Of course as I worked the more ideas generated other ideas. I've got a few different conflicts going on, and some thoughts for a decent cast of characters. People are involved with getting the mission ready to travel to Alpha, and then there is the crew of the shuttle.

Taking a step back and looking at what is involved I realized that at the current level of detail this is more than what would make for a decent short story. There are to many things happening and to many characters, if I confine it to a small space (pardon the pun) then it will feel to disjointed. This realization gave me a choice; I could take out part of the story to simplify it, or I could turn it into something longer.

While I'm not saying that this will be a novel, I have decided not to remove anything for the sake of length. The events that transpire here are all involved in a pivotal moment in history for the formation of civilization in my novel(s). My goal here is to best tell that story. If on further work it looks like it might stand as a short, fine. But if as I suspect it wont, then I'll work out the details and figure out what format will work best with the telling. I can always come up with something else if I really want to write a short story for the purposes of working in a short story format.

Query Letters and Revision

Is it ever to early to start practicing the art of writing query letters? That's a question I've been mulling over for awhile and decided that no, it's not to early to practice them. With novel writing, a good query letter is your foot in the door with agents. No matter how good the novel a bad query letter won't get the manuscript read.

That being said I don't currently have any novels ready to start sending out queries for. I'm planning on my query letters serving a dual purpose. In addition to the practice I figure that taking the time to write a query letter now would be a perfect opportunity to look at my novel and highlight the important parts for myself. What are the selling points? What is the main conflict? Where do I see the direction of the novel? All those sorts of questions.

Yes, I'm working on revision. Once take that good look at where I want my novel to be I can look over my draft and work on getting my novel there. An outline will help, I already have one from writing the first draft. But the outline I'm talking about for this stage is a revision outline. I'll use the main points from my query to start the outline, and work in parts from my draft outline that fit in. I'll also see what scenes from the draft will work where for the revision outline. With writing first drafts, I always have more stuff in the draft then was planned ahead of time on the draft outline.

Of course I have to figure out which novel do to this with. I have two that I want to focus on with revisions this year. My mining mystery I'm working on as part of the 2yn class over at FM Writers. I'm planning on following Zette's lesson plan for that novel revision. Which leaves me with my magical fantasy novel draft. That might be a good one to work with as I need to figure out my audience. After writing the first draft part of me feels that novel could almost be young adult. Looking at the novel and writing the practice query letter should help me figure that out.

I'll post updates on the progress here on how well (or not)this works out for me.

Expanding Worlds

Well, part of the reason for this blog is to update my progress on my various writing projects. The lack of posting hasn't quite been lack of writing, more so I keep thinking of what to post and haven't had much time in which to do so.

Anyways today's post is about fictional worlds, specifically the one for my related group of science fiction novels. While I have the first draft done for my Mining Mystery (nano 09) I still need to do more world building before I work on revision. Part of that world building is history on how humans expanded from Earth out into the other planets they live on for the novel. I have some basic ideas on how the migration happens it is the details I'm working out now.

Enter a scene I wrote for a Forward Motion monthly challenge, about 2 years ago now. The scene is about 500 words long and follows a young woman ready to board a space shuttle to a distant planet. I had my novels in the back of my mind when I wrote the scene, as it's a link to the populated universe in the novel time line. The scene has the framework down for something larger, which I'd like to expand on. It has a short story waiting to be told.

Said short story is being "notecarded" currently. I have index cards in my purse, on my desk, in my other bag, ect, and I have been jotting down scene and character ideas. The scene I wrote is a smaller part of this larger story. I already have in mind some obstacles the crew on the shuttle will face on their trip, political intrigue which will threaten the trip, and other goings on.

Moving back to the world building link. Everything that takes place in the story will be historical events from the novel's point of view. In a way I'm making up future events so that they can be historical events. What do the characters of this era have to fight and overcome in order to lay the foundations of a society in the next era? It's a fun question to work out through the different characters I have in mind already.

Though I have to keep telling myself, "This is not a novel" and repeating that mental mantra.

Growing Shorter

So I had a thought today, that every time I write a first draft of a novel it ends up shorter than the last one. My first I finished at 100k (mainstream), my next just shy of 80k, then 60k or so for the next, and now my most recent draft is 54,638 words long. And it's science fiction.

But the more I got to thinking I realized that I should look past the numbers. I write really rough first drafts, that 100k one I know has plenty of "fluff" in it like my characters cleaning house (yes, my first novel). Compare that to my 50k draft where all the scenes are directly related to the main conflict, even if the dialogue does get way to wordy in places. There is even a spot in my outline where I jumped ahead, and when I revise there will be more events happening in the next draft.

I also realized another important thought. I know where to take this novel next. I know how the main characters grow, what events happen in the novel, what things I need to figure out yet in revision. I have a plan to take this rough bunch of 50k words into a more fleshed out novel. I can't say the same thing for that 100k draft. Yes, I could easily delete out the extra useless bits, but it lacks the basic building blocks of a novel. While the characters have some conflict, I hadn't done much with it.

So even with the shorter word counts, I'm pleased to see that my writing is growing in such a way that I can still keep working on a novel after the first draft. And know what I need to do next to boot.

First Draft Finished

Well I typed the words "The end" on my novel draft today. Yes, I actually finished the draft, I didn't simply type "the end" because I was sick of the draft. I had been tempted to do that thanks to a gap in my outline, but I stuck with it.

Now the next step I have planned is to take notes on what I know needs fixing, then to set the draft aside. I'll prep for revision early next year, maybe in February or so. My draft wrapped up with a fight scene with two characters, and I'm wondering if I've shown the one character's physical strength enough earlier in the novel for her fight action to be believable. She's a mechanic and lugs around heavy parts at times, but she spent enough time sleuthing in the draft that there might not be enough build up. And I still have to work on the whole villain arc. And the technology and layout of the station.