A fascination with buildings.

[Oldgnome]

[Hello. Oldgnome here reporting on the completion of my novel 'Dear Happenstance' under my pen name Toby Hallen (Amazon).]

I would like to think that my work is fantasy. It is a divided story - the plot swings to and thro between two buildings. One of these buildings is in a magical universe, but the other building is in a kind of alternative dystopian now. It had taken years to get this story right - in fact I am ashamed to tell you how long. I normally write short or shortish stories and I have a small collection out there but the completion of Dear Happenstance has shocked me, because it is a novel. I did not mean to write a novel. I regularly separated the two plots and worked on them separately and even published them separately for a time under my real name.

When I was young I attended my first writers' workshop and the tutor explained to me that I was very much a short story and poem sort of person. If I wrote a novel it would stretch every sinew to get it arranged and paced right. I accepted this and I still think I am a short story writer. This behemoth (86k words) is a monstrous size for me and it has indeed stretched every sinew and nearly driven me mad.

I don't think I have another novel in me.

 

[Gurkhal]

Good job on finishing a novel. If you don't feel you want to write another novel that's fine, but since you have written one I dare say you've got what it takes to writer another. If you would so desire.

 

[Oldgnome]

Thanks Gurkhal. I like short stories because they can be very concentrated and have few characters. When I read I choose books with a handful of characters. I got away with a low population of characters in my novel. I like short stories because I can edit them easier. I don't like editing.

 

[Devor]

Kudos on finishing the book. I don't envy you having to edit it now. But even finishing one is kick ass.

When I was young I attended my first writers' workshop and the tutor explained to me that I was very much a short story and poem sort of person.

Hey, if you want to be a short story and poem sort of person, then that's cool. But, your tutor when you were young doesn't get to explain that to you like it's a fact of your biology. You get to make choices, and put in the effort, and grow as a person, to figure out what you're good at and where you want to spend your energies. Don't let other people decide what sort of person you are - and also, in my experience, I generally think people are better off accepting only a very small number of those "I'm this sort of person" statements because they can start to hold you back.

 

[Karlin]

Great job. No one has a novel in them, until they write their first one. And if it took a few years, so what? My brother has been working on one for a decade , so far....

 

[Oldgnome]

Kudos on finishing the book. I don't envy you having to edit it now. But even finishing one is kick ass.



Hey, if you want to be a short story and poem sort of person, then that's cool. But, your tutor when you were young doesn't get to explain that to you like it's a fact of your biology. You get to make choices, and put in the effort, and grow as a person, to figure out what you're good at and where you want to spend your energies. Don't let other people decide what sort of person you are - and also, in my experience, I generally think people are better off accepting only a very small number of those "I'm this sort of person" statements because they can start to hold you back.

Thanks Devor. I was so young and it was my first writers' workshop. To be fair the tutor was a poet and had tried to write a novel and it had been received badly, so maybe he was going through his own issues. From now on if a piece of writing does stretch out then I will go just with it,

 

[Oldgnome]

Great job. No one has a novel in them, until they write their first one. And if it took a few years, so what? My brother has been working on one for a decade , so far....

Thanks Karlin. What is odd about long, long, long pieces of work is that when you read them through when they are finished you find they act like diaries. What I mean is any section or scene reminds you of what you were doing in the real world at that time.

 

[minta]

Well done! Even if you usually write short stories, this novel proves you can handle longer stories too.

 

[Oldgnome]

Thanks Minta. Maybe I could manage longer writing. I have nothing in-progress at the moment that could be developed into a novel. Maybe something will will turn up.

 

[pmmg]

Congrats on finishing your first novel. My big story began as a short story, and quickly grew. Now I am writing book five of the series it happens. One person saying something about you is hardly a lifetime proscription. You have my permission to outgrow them now.

Interesting concept, a story of two buildings, similar but different and far apart from each other.

I am not sure there is much focus on any building in my story. In fact, I can only think of one I might be able to map out in my head.

 

[Prince of Spires]

Thanks Minta. Maybe I could manage longer writing. I have nothing in-progress at the moment that could be developed into a novel. Maybe something will will turn up.

I personally believe that stories should end up as long as they need to be. Some ideas look big from the outside, but when you write them they're best explored in a short story, while others start as shorts and end up becoming a trilogy. Don't limit yourself to one or the other, but stay true to the idea and the story.

Tolkien, in the foreword to the Lord of the Rings, mentions that The tale grew in the telling. He set out to write a sequel to the Hobbit, which is a 95k word childrens story. He ended up with a 480k word novel that comprises 6 books and was published as a trilogy. All because he was true to the tale he wanted to tell. If he'd stuck to the idea that he needed to write something similar, because that was what he'd been told, then we would be short one masterpiece of literature.

 

[pmmg]

Wow, my story is currently over 700k words. I cant believe it is longer than LOTR. It does not feel like it.

 

[Oldgnome]

I personally believe that stories should end up as long as they need to be. Some ideas look big from the outside, but when you write them they're best explored in a short story, while others start as shorts and end up becoming a trilogy. Don't limit yourself to one or the other, but stay true to the idea and the story.

Tolkien, in the foreword to the Lord of the Rings, mentions that The tale grew in the telling. He set out to write a sequel to the Hobbit, which is a 95k word childrens story. He ended up with a 480k word novel that comprises 6 books and was published as a trilogy. All because he was true to the tale he wanted to tell. If he'd stuck to the idea that he needed to write something similar, because that was what he'd been told, then we would be short one masterpiece of literature.

Tolkien was my first introduction to fantasy. He left so many things unsaid or half-lit. I feel the same way about Mervyn Peake. I like the endlessness that lurks in the margins of these writers..

 

[xena]

Congrats on finishing your novel! 86k words is no small feat. You should be really proud.

 

[Oldgnome]

Thank you Xena. As I say it was an odd achievement. Two simpler stories were originally intertwined as a longer one. Then I split the two two stories and they developed separately for decades. Then recently I though they might be better together again and all of the improvements served the whole and suddenly there was the novel. I perhaps would not advice writing elements separately because these two stories were actually together at the very beginning. I am returning to shorter fiction for a bit.