I have to admit the ugly truth: I’m an aspiring writer. This is my blog. Which means that I’ll tend to post about writing.
I know. Writers talking about writing can be rather dull for the non-writer. But then, it’s not like I have a lot of readers to begin with — 0.5, the last time I checked.
So beginning with this post, I plan to post a lot about writing. A lot.
On to the first topic: Do I write short or long? And why?
I’m a novelist . . . but perhaps that’s too presumptuous. I mean, I’ve written only one novel: a 300-page mystery novel that is absolutely terrible. But it’s finished. Which is more than what other aspiring novelists can say.
But besides that one finished novel, almost all of my ideas end up growing into novel-length. I could count the number of novels I started and stopped if i took off one shoe and one sock to help. My inability to finish what I start is, if not a character fault, certainly some kind of fault. I often wonder where I’d be if I had finished all those novels I had begun. A lot further along in this game than I am.
But I will not lament. Nothing good comes from lamenting.
Why am I a novelist?
Because that’s what I read growing up, novels. I was never much of a short story fan. I attribute my hesitation to read short fiction to the fact that the short form is so dominate in television and the movies.
Even though a movie is longer than a typical television show, it must be as taut as a short story for it to work well. There can be no loose ends in a movie, no unresolved plot lines, no extraneous characters. And all that is true of a short story.
But a novel is fundamentally different. A novel can be a big, sprawling thing that hangs together by a thread. Characters can come and go. Plot lines can blend then separate, with the minor ones remaining unresolved. There’s room to breath in a novel, room to shift positions, room to ruminate on things tangential to the main story.
That’s not to say a novel is an incoherent mess, only that good novels — even great novels — offer more than just story.
As a kid I, when I sat down to read, I wanted something other than the perfect structure of a TV episode or a movie. So I turned to novels. And I still do.
Since I primarily read novels (in fact, I’d prefer to read a novel than watch TV or a movie), when I sit down to tell my own stories, I naturally think long. It’s not something I do consciously. As I start mulling over an idea, very quickly does it grow. I just can’t help it.
Next blog post: What kind of fiction do I write? And why?
Yet, I’m about 60 pages into The Great Hunt, and though I read the first half of this book, it was almost ten years ago when I did, and I don’t remember too much of anything about it. So I’m thoroughly enjoying it, too.