Years ago, when I suffered from writer's block, one of the problems I suffered was that I thought of everything in short story form. I wanted to work on a novel, but I felt helpless to do so because every story I came up with worked better as a short story.
Long story short, then I started screenwriting, which helped me work my way to novels.
Nowadays, I suffer from the exact opposite problem I used to have. I think of everything in the terms of a novel.
I'm still busy working on ye ole trilogy, plus a few side projects, so I've got plenty of work. But I keep having ideas that I want to make into a short, but those stories keep expanding and expanding and expanding. For instance, I've got an idea for a character, his environment and the basic plot. But then I start thinking about the character's past, how he got to what he is and where he is at. I start thinking about certain relationships he has with other characters, and I know his far past as well as some of the things to happen to him in the future.
And then I'm lost. I've got too much in my mind for a short story.
Lucky me. Yet another novel idea. No, no. It's even better. Another idea for a series, or another trilogy.
Damn thinking like a novelist!
1 comment:
I hear you, Ty! My problem, too. I turn everything I write into either novel or series. I have yet to complete a tale that hasn't turned its protagonist into a serial character. I have 3 in the works, but they've been unfinished forever. Everything else, I must fall in love with my characters or something, cause more and more ideas surface and clamor for release.
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