Oh, no! Started Something Else!

[queenoftheskies]

Like I really need a new project, right? Sheesh!

But, I needed a short story for a Halloween contest in an online writing group I belong to, and it suddenly hit me that I could use the idea I had for a screenplay I started and then never had time to finish. So, I thought, yeah, that would work.

Then, I thought, hmm, this could do double service. The short story contest has a 10,000 word limit. So, I write a 10,000 word short story for this idea, and then, I expand it into a novel and submit it to an online e-book publisher I've been considering. Or, who knows? Maybe I'll just submit it to a regular publisher, assuming I finish, with everything else I've got going on.

I have to have the short story finished by midnight Sunday night. Can I do that? Well, I'm anxiously waiting to find out. Going to give it a try.

At any rate, it's called Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory and it's a horror story set during the Civil War time period, which I've always been fond of, since I grew up in Nashville, but I've never really written much in.

Fingers crossed that I'll finish in time. :)

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory 1,234 words for the day

1,234 total words to date.

Comments

[kimberlychapman.livejournal.com]

I could barely scratch the surface of anything in ten thousand words. :D

Last summer my publisher for Sorrows of Adoration wanted a short story for free to put on their website to entice potential customers, so I wrote up something fairly quick based on an idea I had back then. I figured one day I'd revisit it and turn it into a couple of books about the demise of a future colony that was supposed to be liberal but goes all Orwellian because people inherently suck.

Heh...in February of this year I started turning into a book or two...or three...or ten...and it's what I just submitted. The first book is that 330,000 word monster I told you about. The series summary I wrote for the publisher is 22 pages alone (single spaced).

So much for a short story, eh? ;)

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

I so agree about not being able to do anything in short form. I have so much trouble with that.

So, I figured, for my short story, I'd pick the major scenes, kind of like I would when writing a screenplay, and use those for the short story, then flesh them out and add more scenes when developing it into a longer project. Hope that works.

You're writing your huge project as one piece and then splitting it into individual books? Do you have distinctive lulls where the books want to be split later?

Sounds like a fascinating premise.

[kimberlychapman.livejournal.com]

I think that sounds like a sensible approach to the short story. When I do write one, I force myself to remember that a short story isn't supposed to have all of the background and explanation I want to put it, so I leave ALL of it out. I think of it as a snapshot.

No, I'm not writing it as one huge piece. I'm writing it as individual books but there's an overriding story arc. Basically, each book has three story elements: 1) the macro story of the Colony's political issues, 2) the medium story of a particular crime case that the characters are working on, and 3) the personal stories of the characters themselves. I tell 1 and 2 through 3. I don't sit around textbook-izing about the political issues...I let the characters bitch about them. :) That kind of thing.

So the story breaks are around the main medium story in each instance (I say main because crime being what it is, sometimes there are multiple medium stories all rolled up together, ie they solve one case just to find that they've discovered some deeper and more horrible set of criminals behind it).