A.) Currently, i use typical ol' Wordpad to write my story. Are there any programs out there i could download to make things easier, to know how many pages i have so far? I know a book page is significantly smaller than a standard size piece of notebook paper.

B.) I have absolutly no problem developing ideas for books/short stories, but i do have problems developing something to give them bulk. For example, i could probabbly pop out a ten page short story, but i want to be able to write a 300 page book. What kind of details should i add? Character conflicts, Character histories, i am totally lost and i need help big time in this area

A standard manuscript page has about 250 words, which means that your average novel-length manuscript will be between 350-500 pages. (FYI - you're standard book page has about 350 words, so a 285-page novel is about a 100,000-word novel.)

B) Your problem is my problem, too. Have you ever heard of Dramatica? It is a program to help people develop their story ideas. I don't find it too helpful, but I did learn one thing. There must be at least FOUR story lines in a story that's novel length: the Overall Story, the Main Character Story, the Impact Character Story, and the Main Character/Impact Character Story. Let's use Ender's Game as an example.

The Overall Story is that which EVERYBODY in the story is concerned with. In Ender's Game, everybody is concerned with the buggers and how to defeat them.

The Main Character story is the story of the main character--it's Ender's story. It begins when the monitor is taken from him and ends when he realizes his mission is to be Speaker for the Dead. To be more precise, it's about his development into a military genius, his longing for acceptance, his longing for friendship, his relationship with Peter and Valentine, etc. Notice how much more complicated the Main Character story is from the Overall Story.

The Impact Character is the character who pushes the main character forward, who forces the main character to face his or her problems. In Ender's Game, the Impact Character is Colonel Graff, even though he and Ender hardly see each other. Note that Colonel Graff has his own story--namely, he relationship with his superiors, fear of possible court marshal, etc. Thus, there is an Impact Character story line.

Finally, you have the Main Character/Impact Character Story--namely, the relationship between the main character and impact character. In Ender's Game, it is Graff who decides to put Ender in situations where he can't rely on an adult to save him. Also, it was Graff who picked Ender out of the group of boys early in the novel so that he would feel isolated.

Of course, Ender's Game has a second (minor) story going on--the one between Valentine and Peter. The Overall Story is concerned with the Warsaw Pact. The Main Character is Valentine. The Impact Character is Peter. And their relationship is the main character/impact character story.

So, then, how do you "beef up" you novels? It seems to me that you should figure out what the Overall Story is about, what the Main Character is about, what the Impact Character is about, and what the Main/Impact Character's relationship is about. Also, you should look to your minor characters and begin applying the same principles. If you get these stories planted firmly in your mind, then when you write the story, you'll have a deep well from which to draw.

I hope this helps.

While I use Microsoft Word (and so does almost everyone I know), you can almost certainly get a passable, free word processor on the Web. Try going to www.shareware.com, selecting your platform (Windows, Mac, etc.), and typing in the phrase "word processor." You might have to sift through a fair number of entries and try a few programs, but you're likely to find one that will let you set margins, double space, do word counts, etc. for free or very cheaply.

Regarding beefing up a story into a novel: I'm also a little spooked by talking about beefing up a story to that length, and I agree with what's been said: Keep asking questions about the story and coming up with new answers, developing new ideas, etc. As to a framework, you might want to get a rough idea of how many chapters you're looking at; for me, I usually write chapters of 2,000-6,000 words, so an average book for me might be 30 chapters. If you make a list and start filling in a few details about each chapter (WordPad would be a perfectly OK place to do this), you can start getting an idea of the overall arch of the story.

I found the idea of the four stories within one story interesting but limited. On first glance it seems to me like any other good formula: You can make a lot of good stories out of it, but it's not necessarily the way to make every good story. Still, if it works for you, go for it. There are other models like that, too, some of them quite useful.

An example of somewhere where the thing doesn't apply: Romeo and Juliet. Who's the main character? Well, there are two of them. Who impels them to act? Well, Tybalt and Mercutio have some effect on Romeo, as does the Friar, but none of those is present through the whole story. Certainly Romeo impels Juliet to act and vice-versa, but that's not quite the same model. And remember that far from being experimental with his plots, Shakespeare tended to use time-honored stories, in this case Pyramus and Thisbe. So my feeling is that I should feel free to try any formula I want, but not to feel like it's the only way to write a story.

i suppose that sort of thing works well, and i must admitt i'm finding alot of what you guys are talking about in my own writing, now that i think about it.

hmm... the thing is, i think a story develops more naturally if you let those little "extras"* develop on their own. my suggestion would be to just write your novel. don't think about length or word processor selection (you can move to anything from wordpad later) until you have your first version down. you may just find your potential extras in the process. i, at least, find that after the first version of anything i write i discover at least a couple "untold stories" i didn't know existed before. but there they are. it may take several versions before you have the length you want, but by then you'll be more concerned with fitting in everything you want to say!

of course, this may not work for everyone. it's really a judgement call...

JMHO

TTFN & lol

Cosmi

What the four story line do is to help you keep things straight. What is the goal of the story? Who are the characters and what are their stories? Finally, what is the central issue in their relationships? This doesn't mean they can't have other issues, but what is the one issue that drives their relationship.

I add that the more complex the story, the more complicated it is to see how these story lines work. But I want to note that I said that each story needs to have AT LEAST four story lines. The more complex the story, the more story lines they'll have, and hence, the longer the stories will be.

Finally <grin> I didn't say to fluff up your story, I said to beef it up--to give it substance. And substance comes from the story itself, not from needless words. So, get it straight <grin>.

The reason I would assert that the four tracks approach is a formula(although I'm finding it very useful) is that it suggests that there must be a story with the main character; that there must be a stand-out supporting character; that the relationship between the main character and the supporting character must have a story to itself; and that it must have a story that doesn't deal with the character (the overall story). None of these needs to be true, although as a rule one or two would be and certainly there are any number of great stories that have all four. But some exceptions:

Gulliver's Travels doesn't really have a main character. But what about Gulliver? He's a McGuffin: All kinds of things happen to him, but the story isn't really about him. It's about these strange lands, which in turn are a satirical treatment of Swift's contemporary society.

Robinson Crusoe doesn't have an "impact character." Sure, there's Friday, but he doesn't drive Crusoe's actions: Crusoe's situation does.

An example of a story where there are a main character and an impact character but the interaction between them is a non-issue is the Lord of the Rings. Frodo is as close as anyone comes to being the main character, and Sauron is the one who ultimately is setting the situation for Frodo to act, but Frodo and Sauron never have any direct contact or relationship. Sure, there's Gollum, but he's not the impact character: He didn't forge the ring, and he's not trying to take over Middle Earth. Frodo would have stayed home if all there was to deal with was Gollum.

As to an example that doesn't have a story apart from the main character's story, try the really great novel _She's Come Undone_ by Wally Lamb. The only thing that happens in the novel is the change to the character. Nothing else of any import is happening.

And I don't think this is a case of "These are the rules, and those just happen to be rare examples of stories that break them." I think the four elements approach here is a formula, because it says your story must have these specific elements and states or implies that they are the most important things in your story. Since there is virtually nothing useful that can be said about how *every* good story is constructed, anything that makes statements about the structure of a story is a formula, and is limited in application. A formula might apply to the vast majority of all stories that have an sizable audience, or it might even cover all of the stories that an individual person likes, but it's never going to cover all successful stories, i.e. all stories that work for at least one significant group of readers (my definition of successful).

Some examples of other formulas that are sometimes useful:

Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl

(From Marion Zimmer Bradley) A likeable character reaches a worthwhile goal through her/his own efforts against almost insurmountable odds.

(One of OSC's formulae for Analog-style fiction - not that it's my sense that he's a great proponent of it) "Independent thinker comes up with great idea; bureaucrats screw everything up; independent thinker straightens it all out and puts bureaucrats in their place."

Man vs. man; man vs. nature; man vs. himself

OK, all that said, I'm finding the particular four-track formula described to be very useful to at least a couple of my current stories, and I'm glad you brought it up.

I think the way a formula "gets bad" is when someone says you must start with A, go to B, then C, until you have D. Don't work on B or C before A, and certainly don't work on A then C. It's bad because it implies one correct way of doing it.

But if I simply say, you need A, B, and C to hopefully conclude with D, then all I've done is simply given you the ingredients to help organize your thoughts, perhaps with some suggestion on how to put them together.

Stephen King's method to much of his madness is to create living characters and then put them in situations. Keeps the door pretty open for him as he moves towards what he thinks is the ultimate conclusion (though it might change). In a broad sense it's a formula, a good one, like OSC's and others mentioned here.

Formulas in a broad sense are much of what our discussions are about here. How do YOU do it so it might help ME to it better. What's your "formula" for success? What peices can I take away from it and put into my own formula for writing?

Personaly, I begin with some characters, and think up of situations where I can test them (as King does; though, I didn't know that 'till now ). As the story progresses, it is the story who leads me.

I don't think I could ever say, This character is important, and those are the cast. As the story develops, it will tell me who are important and who aren't. Perhaps all of them are important; perhaps only one or two are.

Also, I rarely know how the story will conclude, untill I'm near the story's end. So a formula A => B => C => D => E usually does not work for me, for I would (almost) never know the E(nd). The middle steps are also fluid, most of the time.

I'm also working on a different piece of writing software, again for myself, this time to remind me of all the good advice I've sucked in: The Fiction Troubleshooter. The idea behind this is that with certain kinds of writing problems ("I'm blocked" "I don't know how to end the story" etc.) there are specific techniques that might get me back on the path (exercises to try, ways to analyze your story, possible problems you might be having, other approaches you might take). This is kind of a crutch to hold me over until I've internalized all of this stuff so well that I do these things automatically.

I also have a spreadsheet where I log submissions, writing time, and the status of various stories. I might put that in with that first program some time.

So the implicit assertion here that I'm making is that some kinds of software to assist writers are helpful, but I'm entirely in agreement that using computer software to come up with ideas or plot a story is Not Really So Great From My Point of View.

A note about writing software. I have used Dramatica. It's purpose is to help you systematically work out your ideas--not to write your story for you. The problem with it is that it's too systematic. It's like a story in a box. I probably never use it again. I just thank God it was free download!

Ah, it probably sounds like some kind of time clock thing or something. I just note the date and what I got done. It helps me keep perspective on how much work I'm really doing, on what went into a project, etc.

On the other hand, the MICE idea and any other type of "formula" is just a type of outline....we all need SOME sort of outline to proceed and turn it into The Story.

One point I didn't see discussed here was World Building. In addition to the outline, in order to make the story real, the characters real, a world must be built within which the story and characters exist. This technique should be one of the first to be applied, I think, in "fleshing" out a story or novel. This is where I've found the believability factor zooms...no matter how good the writing is, or characters are, or anything else, any time I've read a story that doesn't have a world that has been built up for the story, I end up putting the book down. Tolkien was the best at this, though many author's nowadays do this as well. Patricia Wrede has a website with wonderful pointers on how to do this technique.

Anyone have any comments to this? I'd love to hear them....

I think this would work for almost everyone's story, except for some of the hard sci-fi, which I think is more of a scientiffic concept tacked onto a story than anything.

I'm finding it more difficult. Since I know some of the things that happen it's harder to write the dialogue and details to get there. Suggestions? Ideas? Maybe I just need to re-focus on my audience and on bringing them along with the story. So far, however, this hasn't worked because my friends all know the book.

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I'm finding it more difficult. Since I know some of the things that happen it's harder to write the dialogue and details to get there. Suggestions? Ideas? Maybe I just need to re-focus on my audience and on bringing them along with the story. So far, however, this hasn't worked because my friends all know the book.

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Don't overplan; just plant. E.g., when I write about a day in my curent novel, I write in notes what happens in the morning, in the mid-day, in the afternoon, and evening. But, when I start writing, eg, about something I've planed in the morning, a new idea might come up about the evening, based on something new, not-planed that I wrote about the morning. Then I go for it.

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do people enjoy the technical stuff, JK?

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So, know where the story is going and what the point is before you start trying to reach it. This way you could start 5 minutes before the end, or go back to the begining of the problem and have a much larger story. Star Wars would have worked in a different way if it was only about the Death Star attack and not about Lukes voyage to get there, they could have just but that in as a background story like they did with the spies who stole the plans. We never saw that. Ok, now I am going off on SW again.

This is one reason some writers will not talk about their work while they are still writing it. If they tell the story, it's harder to get their subconscious to work on it any more.

(I hope this makes sense.)

Since all of your friends know the story already, they are probably acting like your subconscious and can't help you any more either.

I would suggest that you try talking the details of your story, the scenes, the dialogue, the descriptions, into a tape recorder instead of trying to put them right onto paper.

Being able to express the story out of your mouth instead of through your fingers may help you get it fleshed out.

Once it's on the tape, you can just transcribe it onto paper (and maybe even edit and flesh it out more as you go).

This kind of approach is like an end run around your subconscious. Writing involves two modes--creating mode and editing/rewriting mode--and they each require different ways of thinking.

If you try to do them both at the same time, you can grind to a halt. This is why I strongly urge people to get the story down on paper (creating mode) first. You may have more or less done this already with your planning and outlining.

Once the story is on paper, then is the time to edit and rewrite. Since you don't have enough story on the paper, you are trying to continue the creating part, and maybe your subconscious is ready for the editing part.

So talking about the story on tape may let your subconscious go back to creating mode.

It's worth a try, anyway.

that's really good advice! i think i'm running into that problem with one of my novels-in-progress. i'm going to try tape recording. thanx!

TTFN & lol

What I meant was, because writing something down and talking about it out loud are basically different ways of processing and expressing things, and because talking about a story is usually easier than writing it down, it might help Diamond to take the talking approach instead of struggling with the writing approach.

Both ways express the story, and either could count as far as the subconscious is concerned, but since the story has already been expressed out loud, the subconscious may be more open to continuing to express it that way as opposed to trying to make it convert to another mode of expression.