Writing a Novel or Short Story
I’ve always been interested in writing a story, and lately I’ve been revisiting the idea with a more approachable technique. Instead of knocking out a full novel in one fell swoop, I might publish a number of different stories in more of a serial format.
When considering what I might write a story about, I’ve had several different ideas: a drug addict who sees large buildings and construction equipment as monsters, a high fantasy work that serves as a more literary telling of the adventures I’ve had across several MMO games, a post-apocalyptic tale of a society rebuilding from disaster. Each of these is obviously unique from the others, and if I were to commit to one, I would be stuck with it for the duration, even if I might want to entertain one of the other ideas. If I let myself switch, the stories might get caught up in the literature equivalent of development hell, and never actually publish anything at all.
To avoid this unsavory scenario, I considered that I might write more or less demo stories. Instead of a 50k+ word novel, as is the expectation for NaNoWriMo, I might only write 10k or so words about a given topic and publish it. The resulting piece would obviously be unfinished, maybe only enough to get some characters and environmental details, and the beginning of a narrative. However, I would then publish what I have (probably as a weekly post here) and welcome criticism.
If one idea is popular with my audience, or if I feel like continuing the story more, I might work on a continuation. On the other hand, if a story is just a flop, I might let it die after the first part. Later on down the road, if I feel like I could rework a failed post into something more viable, I might give it a second chance with what I learn from writing the other stories.
Because these posts would be obviously unfinished material, I might retcon my own plot points. Maybe I kill off a character that I later decide could be useful in another story arc. Maybe I include someone early in a story that I later decide I could’ve done without, and write them out of future installments. I’m not saying these stories would be perfect, just that it would be making material available online, if someone were to be interested.
Eventually, if one story grows to full novel length across several posts, I might look into running it by an editor and publishing it properly. It worked for Andy Weir with “The Martian,” so I don’t see why I couldn’t do the same thing. The originals would remain available here, to serve as a sort of living history of how the story evolved.
Maybe the idea crashes, and I never get a single part published. I at least plan on trying it, and seeing if I can make any sort of cohesive narrative and lore. Before I post the first story, I’ll try to come up with a good label so that someone can find a collection of these posts easily.
When considering what I might write a story about, I’ve had several different ideas: a drug addict who sees large buildings and construction equipment as monsters, a high fantasy work that serves as a more literary telling of the adventures I’ve had across several MMO games, a post-apocalyptic tale of a society rebuilding from disaster. Each of these is obviously unique from the others, and if I were to commit to one, I would be stuck with it for the duration, even if I might want to entertain one of the other ideas. If I let myself switch, the stories might get caught up in the literature equivalent of development hell, and never actually publish anything at all.
To avoid this unsavory scenario, I considered that I might write more or less demo stories. Instead of a 50k+ word novel, as is the expectation for NaNoWriMo, I might only write 10k or so words about a given topic and publish it. The resulting piece would obviously be unfinished, maybe only enough to get some characters and environmental details, and the beginning of a narrative. However, I would then publish what I have (probably as a weekly post here) and welcome criticism.
If one idea is popular with my audience, or if I feel like continuing the story more, I might work on a continuation. On the other hand, if a story is just a flop, I might let it die after the first part. Later on down the road, if I feel like I could rework a failed post into something more viable, I might give it a second chance with what I learn from writing the other stories.
Because these posts would be obviously unfinished material, I might retcon my own plot points. Maybe I kill off a character that I later decide could be useful in another story arc. Maybe I include someone early in a story that I later decide I could’ve done without, and write them out of future installments. I’m not saying these stories would be perfect, just that it would be making material available online, if someone were to be interested.
Eventually, if one story grows to full novel length across several posts, I might look into running it by an editor and publishing it properly. It worked for Andy Weir with “The Martian,” so I don’t see why I couldn’t do the same thing. The originals would remain available here, to serve as a sort of living history of how the story evolved.
Maybe the idea crashes, and I never get a single part published. I at least plan on trying it, and seeing if I can make any sort of cohesive narrative and lore. Before I post the first story, I’ll try to come up with a good label so that someone can find a collection of these posts easily.
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