c1992w

Fred, length of any fiction created by a wordsmith must be directly proportional to complexity of the plot-theme. Suggestion one I offer is to rethink your plot(s).

The other suggestion involves which person to write in. First person novels (Private Eyes are famous for this) always come out with short books/stories - even with a number of red herrings showing up. The third person view, however, gets complex and lengthy very quickly - (Again, for the Private Eye genre, when the detective is just another protagonist in the book). These are devilishly difficult to write and still hold the interest of readers/potential readers - and doing so without red herrings - because all of a sudden time frames of action in the work loom in importance (Again consider the private eye. A murder victim can not meet up with a protagonist after he is dead.....). My bookkeeping of my sub-plots with place/date/time lines is a clumsy housekeeping task - there must be some software for sale that helps......

And finally, the words used by the wordsmith must be precise and the word count must absolutely be minimized and express the exact idea the wordsmith had intended or, once again, the reader will be pissed off and not buy your book/story.

Good luck.

Cecil

I'm having this problem. I'd like to produce a novel length work, but I can't seem to create a story long enough.

My first attempt was 50 pages. My second was 83.

Anyone have suggestions I how to make a longer work?

Write in 50 point fonts and four inch margins.

Fred,

I have studied a ton of methods and the best one I have encountered for length is the following: Dramatica.

Look around that site and read. There is oodles and oodles of stuff to learn and think about.

I really like the way they divide up character functions so they represent different parts of the brain. It's a wonderful concept of major length story.

I have only worked my way through 20% of the material and I am in awe of it.

I will be producing works of my own along these lines.

The only caveat is that sometimes the material gets dry. But if you push through it, the rewards are great. And if you are a gifted storyteller, you suddenly get deep structure that will carry you firmly across epic lengths.

Michael

btw - I'm moving this to Writing Techniques. (Suddenly there are a lot of new threads popping up in Creative Writing that are not fiction.)

GS,

Talk to Gore.

See if he can do something with a law or whatever.

Michael

There was something on the internet about Mars heating in parallel with the earths heating. The article I read quoted a Russian Meterologist who was cynical of UN-IPCC findings and Al Gore. Anyone know any details of that?

Cecil Williams