The short-winded writer

[Feo Takahari]

I'll begin with what my prereader just told me:

I've noticed that I'll often get very confused in works where you have a lot of worldbuilding or fantasy/sci-fi elements, and I wasn't sure exactly why that was until now. I knew it wasn't that your prose was too obtuse or anything . . . your writing will introduce many (often complex) concepts very quickly, and doesn't allow enough repetition, emphasis or establishing time for these new ideas to sink in. That is, your stories are often too short . . . Eternal, for instance, introduced some very big themes with romance, religion, redemption, the afterlife and regrets; having a rich and interesting setting using tons of fantasy elements; and had several plot threads/character POVs happening concurrently. That sounds like some prime novel material right there if you ask me. However, MS Word tells me that the entire story is around 16.8k words, not even long enough to be a novella . . . I kinda got the feeling that there was a full novel in there, but the story owl swallowed it, digested all the meat, then coughed up the novel's plot-bones in a dense novelette pellet.

In one form or another, I have been getting this complaint for years. The solution is obvious--"make your stories longer!" But I still haven't figured out what to add! I think of all the things I need to convey, and I write scenes that organically demonstrate those things, and then I put them together with (what I thought were) appropriate transitions, and it still winds up being shorter than all the other stories I've read that deal with similar ideas. The suggestion of "repetition" and "establishing time" seems to be a vital clue, but it's not a clear path forward. What on Earth should I do?

 

[Penpilot]

My first drafts tend to be a bit sparse. They're that way because I haven't really dug deep enough into the world, the characters, and the plot and brought enough things to the surface about each. There are always opposing views to a concept. Exploring those different views and giving them fair stage time and legitimate arguments on their side lengthens the story. If all you're doing is exploring something from one angle then it tends to be short, because it's just a statement without argument or exploration.

I don't know if it's the case with you, but are you exploring things from multiple angles? Do your characters ever get confronted by someone with an opposing viewpoint on things and have to reconcile that with their beliefs? That back and fourth deepens understanding.

This doesn't even have to be about complex and deep subjects. It can be about seemingly trivial things like who should I ask out the blond at the coffee shop or the brunette at the library?

 

[BWFoster78]

I'll begin with what my prereader just told me:



In one form or another, I have been getting this complaint for years. The solution is obvious--"make your stories longer!" But I still haven't figured out what to add! I think of all the things I need to convey, and I write scenes that organically demonstrate those things, and then I put them together with (what I thought were) appropriate transitions, and it still winds up being shorter than all the other stories I've read that deal with similar ideas. The suggestion of "repetition" and "establishing time" seems to be a vital clue, but it's not a clear path forward. What on Earth should I do?

Feo,

It's hard to diagnose problems with so little info, but it kinda sounds like your stories are tightly focused on plot details.

Consider your character arcs. Include scenes that advance the plot but that are designed primarily to convey information about character.

 

[Xaysai]

Feo,

Clearly you need to increase the size of the font and make the margins bigger!

But on a serious note, one thing I find myself struggling with (which might be connected to your issue) is when to include a story within a story and when to just "advance time" in the story.

Meaning, my character is making an escape and needs to make it to a Rendezvous point. In great detail I describe his escape through the city, but once he exits the city I continue the story from the point of him meeting up with his apprentice with something like "After finally eluding the last of the guards, I scaled the city walls and met with with Kaul, my apprentice".

But then I ask myself: can anything happen from the time he makes it out of the city to the time he meets up with the apprentice which is relevant to the plot or story? And the answer is "sure!" Maybe a tenacious guard follows him, sneaks up on him and attacks him as he enters the forest/treeline and he either kills the guard, or just leaves him unconscious.

Maybe after eluding the guards he runs into some kind of man-eating creature in one of those "wow, can this day get any worse" scenes.

Maybe he comes across someone else in need of help which he chooses to assist while trying to make his getaway.

I wonder if you can look at any of the points where more "story" could exist in your "story"?

 

[Shockley]

My advice is to cut anything that opens up that kind of vista and has no role in the story.

Second, work on your wind. Purposefully sit down and push yourself to longer and longer stories.

 

[Rullenzar]

Be unpredictable. You present a plan to the reader but throw a wrench in it and throw them offcourse.

 

[saellys]

I don't consider repetition a good solution--you'll risk wearing out your readers by hammering the same points home over and over again. Establishing the passage of time is important and falls under pacing, but it's also no good to have a bunch of chapters where your characters do nothing and... time passes.

Do you spend much time on your characters' thoughts and reflections about what's happening around them? Do you explore their goals and motivations that go beyond the things happening over the course of a story, and detail how the plot's events throw their other plans out of whack? That goes a long way toward establishing a rich world outside that particular plot, making your characters more believable, and padding your word count without seeming like filler.

 

[Leif Notae]

Why is this a problem?

In fact, you should consider it a compliment. You can convey a story within a tight confine without having to pad or go into terribly boring descriptions on how the protag feels while they cut their toenails.

The stories being sold are getting shorter. Serials are exploding right now, same with novellas and novelettes. Even novels themselves are getting to the 50-60k level. Stay where you are and keep cranking out the good, lean stuff. You'd rather have them clamoring for more than leaving them feeling bloated from fluff.

 

[MadMadys]

I would say try trimming your stories down or making them more focused than trying to lengthen them. Instead of statements on three or four things, make it about one. Do one message well rather than drawing four out.

 

[BWFoster78]

Why is this a problem?

In fact, you should consider it a compliment. You can convey a story within a tight confine without having to pad or go into terribly boring descriptions on how the protag feels while they cut their toenails.

The stories being sold are getting shorter. Serials are exploding right now, same with novellas and novelettes. Even novels themselves are getting to the 50-60k level. Stay where you are and keep cranking out the good, lean stuff. You'd rather have them clamoring for more than leaving them feeling bloated from fluff.

The way I read the initial post, it's a problem because his readers are left confused by the plot. I can understand the readers' complaints. If the author packs in too much plot detail in a short space, the reader doesn't have time to process the information, which leads to confusion.

 

[Leif Notae]

Actually, from what I am reading on it, this is more of a complaint that it should be longer, not that it was confusing.

Then again, this is up to interpretation. I still stand by my original comment.

 

[BWFoster78]

Actually, from what I am reading on it, this is more of a complaint that it should be longer, not that it was confusing.

Then again, this is up to interpretation. I still stand by my original comment.

From the original post:

"I've noticed that I'll often get very confused in works where you have a lot of worldbuilding or fantasy/sci-fi elements, and I wasn't sure exactly why that was until now."

That seems to be the crux of the matter, the way I read it.

 

[gethinmorgan]

I have this problem too ... my novel-size plot shrinks under the prose-heat lamp. I attribute this to a passing obsession with flash fiction - where - every - word - counts, and every extraneous word is shaved away to the bone ...

Trouble was, I couldn't get the rhythm of my old prose back when I tried writing longer works. Everything I wrote was dessicated. I've managed to condense a novel-length epic into 15k words, and expanding it seems like padding.

I finally broke this mindset by writing an 'Olde Worlde speechifying' story, as an exercise, one where -

the nature of my diction necessitated a more verbose frame of mind, and gave my imagination a freedom to wonder across the page as my bad judgement allowed. My god-blest inner rhythms were thus so confused, that I felt as surely does a brindlehound having lived on the tightest leash, to find itself suddenly set free...

Yes, I know it sucks, and the story will never see the light of day in it's current form - but the act of using too many words of purpose changed the rhythms of my sentences. Imagine expanding the words 'I fell over to five long-winded paragraphs.

A wonderful, chest-expanding awareness of the elbow room available on the page.

(All IMO. Terms and conditions apply.)

 

[Kit]

. . I kinda got the feeling that there was a full novel in there, but the story owl swallowed it, digested all the meat, then coughed up the novel's plot-bones in a dense novelette pellet.
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:bounce: I *want* your beta reader!!!!

I have a bit of the same issue. I am a very blunt, forthright person who likes to cut to the chase, and I find that my lack of patience with meandering definitely bleeds into my writing. I have to make a very conscious effort to put my self in character, and think, "Okay, *I* would have this conversation in about eight words, but this character would need to dance around the point a little because...." Then I have to be careful to not pump the story full of boring filler just for its own sake.

Then when I edit, I'm trying to cut out anything that says "extraneous filler", and I end up right back where I started.

 

[Anders Ämting]

So, this all reminds me: I have this Harry Potter fanfic in the works, which I believe I mentioned in that fanfiction thread we had. Basically, I'm rewriting the first HP book with slightly altered characters and plot.

Now, since I'm lazy, I didn't want to literally write the whole book all over again. Instead I based the plot on the movie, essentially following it scene by scene. The movie omits a lot of stuff and simplifies the rest, so I figured this would speed things up a bit.

Now, my first chapters tend to be very short and then they kinda get longer and longer. With this fanfic I stabilized at around 10.000 words a few chapters in. I made an outline for the chapters and calculated I would need about 10-11 chapters to finish the story as planned. Then it occured to me that these numbers seemed to add up to a lot.

I looked up the exact word count for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Then I did the math on what my own word count would end up as if my chapters stayed the same size to the end. Turns out my fanfic would end up just as long as the original novel, if not slightly longer.

Bear in mind that I was writing according to the movies that omit whole scenes from the book, specifically so that I would have to write as little as possible, plus I skipped the first couple of chapters and basically started the story at the train station because, again, I'm lazy that way.

JK Rowling still managed to tell way more story than me with as many words or less.

I tried to figure out how this is even possible, and I think I figured it out: Basically, I use a lot of dialogue. I mean, I don't think I use too much, but I do like getting the story across via a heavy amount of character interaction, whereas Rowling uses dialogue more sparesely, has less main characters (I increased the main cast a bit) and has a somewhat minimalistic style in general.

So, um, I guess my advice here is: Have a lot of scenes with characters talking.

Why is this a problem?

Because Feo's beta readers have told him it is.

I agree this doesn't have to be a problem, but if the readers consider it such, then it is.

 

[ThinkerX]

I went through something like this with 'Labyrinth'...and still am, to a point.

As originally envisioned, 'Labyrinth' was supposed to be a short story or novellete - 10,000 words, maybe 12,000.

So...chapter one of the first draft begins with the MC entering the Labyrinth proper.The basic plot was fairly simple, there wasn't a great deal of description once the groundwork was set, nor were there all that many characters, so the length seemed doable. But then I started adding stuff - like why did the MC in particular come to this maze? What was the situation with the magician? Plus I kept thinking of things for the MC to run into. First draft topped 40,000 words.

A year and some passed. I joined this forum and took another look. Ok...I'd gone and added a whole bunch of stuff that could be cut without affecting the story at all. In fact, cutting that stuff - mostly pointless wandering and fighting - would make the tale much smoother. I also had an unneeded character I could drop. But...there was still the bit about WHY the MC had gone into the maze - his personal reasons and the reasons imposed on him. Plus, the maze was a long ways from his hometown - several thousand miles. So...I looked at it and thought, and decided I needed a short lead in to account for this stuff - begin the tale sooner - and then I could go and cut away a huge mass of unneeded stuff. I figured I could knock it down to about 15,000 words, 20,000 at the most.

So I started the rewrite. Right off the bat, my 2000 word opening chapter doubled to more than 4000 words, and still looked a little sketchy. I did cut scads of stuff from the rest...tens of thousands of words...but then I went and added thousands of words more to properly develop the characters and advance the story (fights only when needed, very little random wandering). The rewrite topped 34,000 words. Much, much better.

Then, a couple months ago, I decided to go through it, do some serious editing for grammar, fix minor plot holes, that sort of thing. My first chapter turned out to have a lot of these problems: key characters acted without motivation, or made highly imphausible decisions ('Fridge Logic' I believe). So, in between writing short stories, I've been fixing that. As a result, Chapter One has gone from a little over 4000 words to nearly 14,000 - about as long as I'd originally envisioned the whole tale to be. I get some other things fixed, and the new version of 'Labyrinth' will probably be just about as long as the original draft, though radically different in character.

Now...if I really wanted to, I could sit down and trim it to about 15,000 words...but then, the story wou;d suffer. Or, I could add some padding, and possibly bump it up to 70,000 words...but then the story becomes lost in the details. So, done right, the story is as long as it needs to be...which in this case is probably going to be around 42,000 words.

apologies for carrying on so long.

 

[Feo Takahari]

In most of my stories, at least 50% of the scenes are at least 50% dialogue, so I think I've got that well in hand (or perhaps out of control). However, I have a tendency to set up a goal for the heroes, then have them set out to fulfill it as soon as possible, never giving them an obstacle that isn't in some way related to that goal. I owe a big thank-you to Xaysai for helping me realize that seemingly irrelevant obstacles (like the suspicious guard or the man-eating plant) can still be used to develop a character or a world.

 

[wordwalker]

I'd gone and added a whole bunch of stuff that could be cut without affecting the story at all. In fact, cutting that stuff - mostly pointless wandering and fighting - would make the tale much smoother. I also had an unneeded character I could drop. But...there was still the bit about WHY the MC had gone into the maze - his personal reasons and the reasons imposed on him. Plus, the maze was a long ways from his hometown - several thousand miles.

I have a tendency to set up a goal for the heroes, then have them set out to fulfill it as soon as possible, never giving them an obstacle that isn't in some way related to that goal. I owe a big thank-you to Xaysai for helping me realize that seemingly irrelevant obstacles (like the suspicious guard or the man-eating plant) can still be used to develop a character or a world.

Characters > random patrols.

Size could come from the density of description or dialog, or the number of practical challenges for the MC. But if it's from having to make a decision about other characters, or them making decisions about the MC, those complications have a way of enlarging the story that doesn't just stretch it out.

It can just take a chapter or two to say "his friend was dragged off to the fort, so he rode out and rescued him." But if the added element is the MC almost not daring to go... the sergeant who sneaks him in having his reasons for betraying him... the friend refusing to be rescued... the commander's reasons for seizing him... those add more depth than just increasing the number of fights.

Part of that is that adding character issues makes it a little easier to judge whether the new twist is a key addition to the concept you have (Unmentioned Motivation, or great contrast) or a distraction. And of course we make our own decisions about whether a character thread is one page of added explanation or five more chapters of how that character mixes with all the others-- or just to dig the MC's way out of what someone did to him. But, look for the people.

 

[Xaysai]

Characters > random patrols.

Size could come from the density of description or dialog, or the number of practical challenges for the MC. But if it's from having to make a decision about other characters, or them making decisions about the MC, those complications have a way of enlarging the story that doesn't just stretch it out.

It can just take a chapter or two to say "his friend was dragged off to the fort, so he rode out and rescued him." But if the added element is the MC almost not daring to go... the sergeant who sneaks him in having his reasons for betraying him... the friend refusing to be rescued... the commander's reasons for seizing him... those add more depth than just increasing the number of fights.

Part of that is that adding character issues makes it a little easier to judge whether the new twist is a key addition to the concept you have (Unmentioned Motivation, or great contrast) or a distraction. And of course we make our own decisions about whether a character thread is one page of added explanation or five more chapters of how that character mixes with all the others-- or just to dig the MC's way out of what someone did to him. But, look for the people.

I think the original suggestion he was referring to was not to "increase the number of fights", but to include extra tales which are relevant to the plot and assist with developing the character, as you suggest.

 

[Leif Notae]

. . I kinda got the feeling that there was a full novel in there, but the story owl swallowed it, digested all the meat, then coughed up the novel's plot-bones in a dense novelette pellet.

This is where I was referring. The confusion is not the story or the writing, it is the condensed plot (which is not a bad thing).

Because Feo's beta readers have told him it is.

I agree this doesn't have to be a problem, but if the readers consider it such, then it is.

Except I do not know this beta reader or their history with reading in general, whether it be in fantasy, literary, sci-fi, or the back of a cereal box (no offense to this beta reader, of course). And, this is ONE beta reader. If there were FIVE beta readers saying the exact same thing, then you might have a point.

I still say there is no problem, but it seems Feo is exploring more expansion so more power. I wouldn't be discouraged from it though.