Single

Similar to Monday's topic, today we’re covering a very broad subject. Why? Because it's the best way I could think of to explain what I mean. ;-)

Singular Events

What do I mean by that? I mean a single point in time. Say, a night at a party, a day at the beach, a trip out of town, a death, a birth. Those are all singular events, things that cannot be stretched out on their own to make a full novel.

However, they can be added to, in order to become a novel. Take a day at the beach, for example. Throw in a shark attack. Someone else is trapped off shore, and the tide is coming up. What happens there, and how everyone deals with those events, could possibly be made into a novel. That's actually not probable, and a slightly horrible example. Sorry. You’d have to push it, but it might work. But a simple story about a day at the beach, would not. It might make a good short story, but you’d never find enough words to make a novel.

The trouble with singular events is that they’re just that: singular. Novels like to have multiples. That’s the whole fun of them. We have a plethora of characters, many different plot lines to follow, various things going on at any given time. Short stories are for the singular, the few characters, the one plot line.

Essentially, what I’m here to tell you today is that if you only have one little idea, then it’s best you aim for a short story.

But if you have a mass of ideas in your head, and you’d like to see if you can fit them all together into one concise story, then you should aim for a novel.

That’s a big thing that a lot of writers forget about while they’re writing. They take a singular story and think it can stretch, and they force it to become a novel when it never wanted to be. And that’s one of the worst things you can do, because no one will ever want to read it.

My apologies for being so blunt. The editor in me is strong today!

[love and hugs]

{Rani}