 Drama: February 01, 2023 Issue [#11768] |
This week: From Short Fiction to the Novel Edited by: Joy  
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"Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart; confess to yourself you would have to die if you were forbidden to write."
Rainer Maria Rilke
“We disconnected. And I wondered if we had ever truly connected.”
Eric Jerome Dickey, Dying for Revenge
“The next thing I knew, I was falling. I dreamed I was being thrown into an open grave, but jerked awake and landed on a bed.”
Eric Jerome Dickey, Finding Gideon
“Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw Jace shoot her a look of white rage - but when she glanced at him, he looked as he always did: easy, confident, slightly bored."
Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. This issue is about the possibilities of a short story to become a novel.
 Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback and encouragement.
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Some of us writers specialized in shorter forms of fiction and some of us are good in writing novels, stage plays, and films. What if when we feel our short fiction needs more meat and that it is lacking in some way as to its length? Can we turn that short fiction into a longer and even more impressive work?
When we write a short story, usually we have these steps in mind:
1.The Main Idea of the short story
2.Main Character, Conflict, and Goal
3.The beginning hook
4.Middle of the story that aims at the story’s message
5.An Ending that is outstanding, haunting, etc. (use your own adjective here, if you wish)
6.Refining what needs to be refined as to the plot and the structure
Then, with flash fiction, we taper off from the above steps what needs to be shortened, implied or not even mentioned.
Yet, what if we liked or even fell in love with the general idea or some part of the above process and decided it had to be further enlarged into a novel or a novella?
Yes, I bet you already know that most well-known and prize-winning novels had their lives begun as short stories. For example, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway took its roots from her 1923 story Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street.
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/63107/pg63107-images.html
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200991h.html
As another example, in our time, Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel The Namesake too its beginnings from a short story she started to write titled, Gogol.
Although, since short story has become sacrosanct these days by insisting on an untouchable literary form of its own, still some short stories offer the possibilities of being turned into novels and even a series. But what would cause a short story to become a novel?
I believe this is all up to us writers of short stories. We may wish to turn a short story into a longer work if we feel some part of the short story needs to be explored further or the idea in it needs heart and the short story didn’t quite address that heart in its entirety, or we were caught up in an image we created (a burning building, a lost child’s tears, etc.) and that image urges us to write a longer work, even if it means altering the short story completely.
The following may be the questions we should ask ourselves before we turn a short story into a novel.
 Can the short story be expanded into a novel in its entirety or can it become a chapter, an idea, or a background story to be referred to?
Are our main characters in the short story shown enough as to who they are? Can they exist in real life and do their characteristics need more development. If we feel we can experiment and enlarge the characteristics of the people in the short story, this would be a huge asset.
Can the chronology of the short story be extended or kept as the same? What about the setting? Would changing its time frame or setting help the novel, such as: Can a short story happening in 19the century Boston be adapted and developed better in Washington DC in our day?
What about the theme? Can we keep the original theme of the short story, such as sacrifice, cheating etc. or is there a stronger theme lurking behind the original theme that would make the novel’s message and appeal stronger?
Then comes the conflict, which in my opinion, is the most difficult part of expanding a short story into a novel. The conflict in the short story explodes or ends in a short time. More patience is required for the same job in a novel, which isn’t easy. We may address this by adding subplots and making the conflict more complicated. For example, a simple thief story may be turned into the international workings of an international mob.
Are we ready and willing to experiment with writing different options as to this expansion? Even when we are sure of what we are doing, turning an already established short story into a longer work of fiction is not a job for sissies.
Yet, I bet, here in WdC, we all have a short story, flash fiction, or even a short stage play that we can turn into a larger work with a stronger message and more depth. I hope, at least some of us may be willing to attempt the labor. Who knows, maybe the result will be worth the time we put in such a job!
Until next time! 
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This Issue's Tip: The revelation in a well-written fiction story with depth is, on the whole, different from and may be the reverse of commercially successful stories. Such a revelation usually comes in the final scenes.
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Feedback for "Is There Enough Suspense in Your Drama?"
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Quick-Quill 
Thank you for this newsletter. I have trouble knowing how much intensity is too much. I'm an action writer and my critique group is so good at pointing out when I've moved too fast, where I need more description and mood. I love the examples you posted and will take a more careful look as I move forward with this new MS.
Thanks for the input. For being a sucker for intensity, I don't think there can be too much of it in any one event, but maybe too many intense events piling one on top of another may leave a reader breathless. Giving a few spaces between intense events and yes, adding mood and character introspection would help.
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Sumojo 
Thank you so much for including my story ‘Feral,’ in this weeks newsletter.
Cheers Sue
Thanks for writing it!
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