Story evolution…
Because I’m taking a breather after three novel-writing marathons by writing short fiction (the novels are: The Last Humans, to be published by Black Opal Books in 2019; Goin’ the Extra Mile, #3 in the Mary Jo Melendez/MECHs trilogy, to be published by Carrick Publishing this fall; and Son of Thunder, the sequel to Rembrandt’s Angel), I decided to take the time to analyze how my short fiction often morphs into a novel later on. The reason is simple and probably applies to many authors: I decide I have more to add to the story.
This evolutionary journey often takes several years. I wrote the short story “Responsibility” even before my first novel Full Medical (2006); it eventually became the second part of the novel Survivors of the Chaos (2011) (now with a second edition contained in the Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection). I wrote the story “Retiree 114 at Pine Hills Manor” just after that; it inspired one plot line of The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan (2013). And my short story “Marcello and Me” won some kind of contest and appeared in the collection Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape (2013) long before A. B. Carolan turned it into The Secret of the Urns (2018) (Volume Two of the Pasodobles collection is now a free downloadable PDF; see my list on the web page “Free Stuff & Contests”).
There are probably other examples—I write a lot of short fiction. And it sometimes goes the other way. When I start a story, I’m never sure whether it will be a dash, middle distance, or marathon race (corresponding to short story, novella, or novel). I thought Phantom Harvester and other novellas in the list of free fiction might become novels (excluding the ones I resurrected from moving boxes, zombies from their temporary tombs). They just didn’t make the grade. More than short stories, to be sure, but I made the decision that there just wasn’t enough material there to run the marathon. Maybe I’ll make them into novels in the future (or someone else will do so after I’m dead!).
This is an important point: authors have to have motivation to endure the marathon run of a novel. Persistence, yes; ideas and material, yes. But you can’t do it without the motivation. Short fiction can provide this motivation years later. The corollary to this is simple: You can always come back to a short story or novella and make it into a full novel, and you can always extend a novel by creating a series. We’re the engineers at the controls of our writing trains. We just have to make sure we implement positive train control at all times!
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Comments are welcome!
Free fiction? As I said, I’ve written a lot of short fiction…and still am. So has A. B. Carolan. Download some from my web page “Free Stuff & Contests”—The Phantom Harvester (crime novella) and Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, Volume Two (collection of speculative fiction stories) are new additions to the list. You will also find free short stories archived in the blog categories “Steve’s Shorts” and “ABC Shorts.” Enjoy.
In libris libertas!
