Timeline for How to extend an idea into a novel?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 23, 2022 at 2:27 | answer | added | Erk | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 22, 2022 at 18:55 | answer | added | Tasios Orthodontics | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 22, 2022 at 8:28 | vote | accept | OprenStein | ||
| Aug 19, 2022 at 3:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackWriting/status/1560461637412392963 | ||
| Aug 18, 2022 at 22:59 | answer | added | user56123 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 17:58 | answer | added | EDL | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 17:44 | comment | added | Steve | I would suggest you practice writing those 20k word stories to be the best stories you can write. If you do that, it will prepare you to write the longer works. Of course, to improve on those stories, you'll need to keep reading about writing and deliberately put the new knowledge to use, such as story arc, character conflict, world-building, etc. | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 15:25 | comment | added | Stef | A novel is more than just "an idea". For instance, "a character is stuck in a tree and must climb down" is an idea. But it's not a novel. To make it a novel, you need to add more things. Perhaps a second character is throwing stones at the first character, and a cat is also stuck in the tree, and the character's love interest is waiting for them on the ground, and if the character doesn't climb down fast enough, a demolishing company will raze the tree down, and while climbing down, the character notices that the tree is sick... | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 15:22 | comment | added | Stef | There are many examples where a writer wrote a short story, then later wrote a novel with the same premise. Finding such examples and reading both the short story and the novel could perhaps help you analyse the difference between the two. As another example, the short story "Wandering Earth" by Liu Cixin was adapted into a much longer film with the same title, the same premise, but completely different characters and scenario. I suggest reading that short story, then watching the film, and then analyzing how they differ and why. | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 13:15 | answer | added | Amadeus | timeline score: 9 | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 12:47 | comment | added | Philipp | But to help with the actual question being asked: Your question is rather general. People have written whole books on how to structure a novel. Perhaps it would be more constructive if you showed us an example of an idea. Then perhaps we could tell you how we would utilize our page budget for a novel. Or you could link to a short story you wrote, and we could tell you where we would have elaborated more. | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 12:26 | comment | added | Philipp | Frame challenge: Does your idea need more than 30 pages to get across? Just because a story is longer does not mean it is better. There is nothing wrong with writing novellas and short stories. And in our modern culture of short attention spans and desire for quickly digestible content, it might even be more audience-appropriate than full-length novels | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 10:00 | comment | added | user54131 | Have you tried analyzing a random chapter of one of your favorite books to see what's in there? (I've never actually tried it myself, but it might be informative to see how much of it advances the main plot, how much advances subplots, how much is character development, how much is world description etc.) | |
| Aug 18, 2022 at 6:43 | history | asked | OprenStein | CC BY-SA 4.0 |